October 17, 2019

"People worry, and I worry deeply, too, about an erosion of truth. At the same time, I don’t think people want to live in a world where you can only say things that tech companies decide are 100 percent true. And I think that those tensions are something we have to live with."

Said Mark Zuckerberg, quoted in "Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg says in interview he fears 'erosion of truth' but defends allowing politicians to lie in ads" (WaPo).

83 comments:

Seeing Red said...

BREAK IT UP!

The Cracker Emcee Refulgent said...

"Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg says in interview he fears 'erosion of truth' but defends allowing politicians to lie in ads" (WaPo)"

Parse that right there. Irony off the charts.

Mike Sylwester said...

Diamond and Silk might have been 100 percent true, but Facebook banned them anyway because they "violated community standards".

Facebook can ban you for two reasons:

1) You are not 100 percent true

2) You violated community standards.

An example of the second reason is that you support Donald Trump while being a Black woman.

jnseward said...

Check out the nasty comments at wapo because Zuckerberg dares to allow Republican ads on Facebook. When did it become a liberal first principle to abolish free speech?

rhhardin said...

People gnaw at the truth and soon it's gone and turned into shit. Censorship prevents that by giving truth an unpleasant taste.

MayBee said...

Who ever thought we'd be saying "Thank God for Mark Zuckerberg".? Yet here I am.

TRISTRAM said...

I don't believe him.

Michael K said...

Zuckerberg and truth have not been in the same county since college,

gbarto said...

Frighteningly, this is among the more sensible statements I've seen about social media and free speech. Kudos to Zuckerberg for saying it. Now if Facebook can just stick to it.

tcrosse said...

What is truth? Asking for a friend.

Temujin said...

Somewhere between Tech Company Truth and Politician Truth, lies truth.

Nonapod said...

Why would anyone believe anything this guy says... or anything said by any of the silicon valley overlords? They're all awful, untrustworthy people who will lie through their teeth and say and do whatever they believe will help prevent having their companies broken up by the government.

wildswan said...

This Google engineer with no background in history or economics who can quickly figure out the truth from a lie should be in journalism or on TV nightly, explaining how he quickly decided what was truth and what was a lie. Then we'd learn how to do the same equally quickly and in comes the reign of truth and justice. Google engineer for President of Harvard, NBC, EU and then Peace on earth. I just hope the Google Tao isn't the same way - shallow, callow prejudice - which is used by everyone else who judges many things quickly. I hope computer programmers are deep thinkers.

Bay Area Guy said...

The best way to get to the truth is the free exchange of ideas, and permitting extensive "cross-examination" of certain favored ideas.

PM said...

At the moment of reading "...and I worry deeply..." I had a very web reaction: Bwahahaha.

Browndog said...

To find the truth requires free and open debate, done in good faith.

Not Deciders.

I do not thank God for Mark Zuckerberg; I curse him. There I am.

Browndog said...

Blogger gbarto said...

Frighteningly, this is among the more sensible statements I've seen about social media and free speech. Kudos to Zuckerberg for saying it. Now if Facebook can just stick to it.


He said essentially the same thing last time, as did Twitter and Google CEO's.

They lied then, and are lying now.

ACTIONS prove it.

stevew said...

You know what the solution is to incorrect, fabricated, and hateful speech? More speech, Not less speech.

Why do all these people like Harris and the anti-speech crowd distrust my ability to discern the truth? Because they think I am an idiot and dolt, of course.

Achilles said...

Zuckerburg is like the corporatists that supported hitler.

He helped Obama and Clinton spy on the personal lives of millions of Americans.

He would happily tell the police who to load on the trains.

So they stop eroding the truth.

Char Char Binks, Esq. said...

I'd rather risk being lied to by people with free speech than depend on an MSM politburo for izvestia and pravda.

WaPO -- Killing Democracy in Darkness

Ken B said...

“Voltaire vows to fight for liars” (WaPo)

traditionalguy said...

Truth is a person. Ask a Christian to introduce you to him.

HoodlumDoodlum said...

I'm not a fan of Zark Fuckerberg generally and I'm willing to bet the fact that he has found himself on the right side of this issue is little more than a coincidence, but at least he's correct.

Well, at least he's saying the correct thing and saying that he/Facebook has the correct policy. I don't think anyone should believe he actually believes this, nor that this is in practice Facebook's actual policy.

Does he does deserve credit for that? Yes, he may have the minimum amount of credit.

Big Mike said...

The key part of what he said was "what tech companies decide are true," since thus far I have seen some of the tech companies accepting patently untrue statements as "true" and perfectly true statements as "false."

And, yeah, TRISTRAM is correct.

tommyesq said...

Disturbing that WaPo is willing to characterize, without thought or analysis, statements that are not "things that tech companies decide are 100 percent true" as "allowing politicians to lie." Much like "allegations that, while having evidentiary and/or inferential support, have not been conclusively proven to be 100 percent true" become "falsely accusing" - see, e.g., Anderson Cooper's phrasing of his exoneration - er, question -about Hunter Biden's "work" in the Ukraine at the last debate.

MadisonMan said...

If politicians were banned from lying in ads, they'd never talk.

Char Char Binks, Esq. said...

"I don't believe him."

It shouldn't matter. We shouldn't have to depend on Zuckerberg, or anyone else, for our rights.

I'm Full of Soup said...

WTF is this the new liberal talking point?

Case in point: Dems screaming about billions no trillions in college loan debt. Does anyone know how much it is? The last couple days I've seen stories claiming it is $1.5 Trillion. Yet as recently as a year ago, reports pegged it at much closer to $1 Trillion.

So what is the truth- does anyone know? I bet Facebook does not know just like no one knows how many illegals are here.







BUMBLE BEE said...

Eric Burdon sang it long ago... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rrKTwSIk6qk

Zuckerberg ain't it.

wsw said...

#deeply

- WSW

Automatic_Wing said...

As far as tech oligarchs go, Zuck is really one of the more reasonable ones. His sister is completely nuts, though.

Todd said...

"Conformity to fact or actuality."

Notice there is no "or feelz" in there nor is it worded "Conformity to [one's own] fact or actuality".

Rick said...

"Obamacare will save the typical family $2,500 a year".

"If you like your doctor you can keep your doctor".

Why are so many people now pretending they care about truth when they've already proven they don't?

wendybar said...

Liberal truth or real truth??? It seems he has NO PROBLEM censoring true things that conservatives post.

Barry Dauphin said...

Zuckerberg, the politician.

n.n said...

It's their civil right to imagine reality and speak truth to facts.

Fernandinande said...

I think that nowadays people in general have a far better idea of what's going on in their own countries and societies, as well as in the rest of the world, than at any other time in history. That knowledge will never be perfect, or even close to it.

'erosion of truth'

Oh, that sounds scary! Happy Exohalloween!

bwebster said...

Quis custodiet ipsos custodes? -- Juvenal, Satires, 2nd century CE

Ignorance is Bliss said...

I do not worry about an erosion of the truth. The truth is unerodable.
I do not worry about the existence nor the spread of false information. It is as it ever was.

I worry about the vast number of people who make little to no effort to determine what is true and what is false. There have always been such people, but there seem to be more of them now, and they are vastly more vocal.

And, while we are on the subject, get off my lawn!

n.n said...

What is truth?

In the near-domain, time and space, forward. backward. and all around, it's observable and reproducible. Outside the scientific logical domain, it's what people believe ("articles of faith"), physical and historical myths, it's a twilight faith that includes a belief in spontaneous human conception ("viability"), and other weird, sometimes wicked, things, where truth is spoken to facts.

MeatPopscicle1234 said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Floris Pennywise said...

I worry less about the erosion of truth, and more about the conflation of opinion with truth, and the inability of the American people to detect this conflation.

Kevin said...

The WAPO’s own fact-checking shows how difficult it is to discern truth from fiction.

I’m sure there is no mention of that in the article.

Sebastian said...

For almost three years, the "truth" was that Trump colluded with Russia. Then that truth proved false, as we deplorables had known from the outset.

But the peddlers of the untruth simply moved on. Nothing happened to them. The NYT did not fold in shame. John Brennan did not check himself into a mental hospital. Adam Schiff started on a new impeachment effort, with Nancy's and the MSM's active support.

The truth is, when falsehood has no consequences, truth does not matter. Which the Universal Theory of Progressive Instrumentalism predicts. Truth claims are tools, may Habermas forgive me.

AllenS said...

MadisonMan said...
If politicians were banned from lying in ads, they'd never talk.

That right there.

madAsHell said...

I saw “The Social Network “. Zuckerberg never gets the girl.

BWHAHAHAHAHAHA! Yeah...sour grapes! I don’t have his money, and I don’t have his problems!

Yancey Ward said...

You would do well to not believe a word Zuckerberg says. I promise you- Facebook is going to censor heavily, and in one direction next year.

traditionalguy said...

The amazing Mr. Zuckerburg is a front man for the CIA that owns FB and him. As such his job is to act out the role of a brilliant college happened student that happened toinvent this massive computer operation all by himself. One that just happens be be a Dossier collecting service and a mass propaganda medium. I would trust nothing he says about what he claims he thinks or feels. Those activities are not his role.

Bob Boyd said...

Dat muttafuggin' Zukabug.
He don't give a shit.

tcrosse said...

Who put the piss in epistemology?

Jim at said...

When did it become a liberal first principle to abolish free speech?

The very second you said or wrote something they didn't agree with.

Joe Biden, America's Putin said...

violating community standards = not properly Soviet Leftwing.

Gk1 said...

Who really cares what this habitual liar has to say about anything? Break them up already! He's like Clapper only with more hair. We keep catching these pricks turning microphones on and selling our data and all we get is a "Gosh, we are so sorry. We thought people wanted their conversations monitored for wrongthink. We probably won't do it again"

Ken B said...

I think we can now say the Minneapolis attack on Trump rally-goers was not a false flag.
https://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2019/10/how-evil-is-the-left-this-evil.php

DarkHelmet said...

This is such an easy problem to fix: ignore all Facebook ads. I never even glanced at one back when I used Facebook. Of course, the easiest answer of all is simply to get off Facebook.

Francisco D said...

I have this really nagging sense that in 25 years, people like Zuckerberg and other liberals will gain the power to determine what is truth.

Luckily, I am 66 and will likely be a senile observer in 25 years.

Susan said...

What is truth?

Pontius Pilate

*As he washes his hands of sending an innocent man to death for political reasons *

bagoh20 said...

I don't trust anyone working for Google, Facebook, or Twitter to decide what is true, or worth publishing. I'd rather have to plow thought piles of bulllshit to find the truth than have anyone at those companies decide for me. Why do they need to censor anything based on truth or politics. The old standards we had about profanity and libel were more than sufficient, and we somehow managed to live with political debate and disagreement.

This generation has been raised with an unearned self-respect and regard for their own opinions. They are infused with a totalitarian spirit, and it's a real bad development that if left unchecked will make the world a less enjoyable, less tolerant, and dull gray place reminiscent of the Soviet Union's architectural wasteland, but coloring the whole culture. I say that will suck the big weenie, and not in a good way!

bagoh20 said...

You have to be a pretty arrogant S.O.B. to imagine yourself arbiter of truth for billions of people you never met. Based on what, by the way? What gives you this power? I'll tell you what: a mistaken opinion of yourself and others. You are simply wrong and too arrogant to let that possibility even break through your self-image. Getting filthy rich with very little effort didn't help. It just cemented your stupidity in place by making you believe your opinions were correct regardless of what they are.

tcrosse said...

What is truth?

Well, if we are going to discuss Truth, we should first define our terms.

John henry said...

And while he was saying that, On 10/15 TechCrunch reported:


Twitter said it will restrict how users can interact with tweets from world leaders who break its rules.

The social media giant said it will not allow users to like, reply, share or retweet the offending tweets, but instead will let users quote-tweet to allow ordinary users to express their opinions.

The company said the move will help its users stay informed about global affairs, but while balancing the need to keep the site’s rules in check.


https://techcrunch.com/2019/10/15/twitter-world-leaders-break-rules/

Let's see the response. I hope it will be a massive shift to Gab, Parler, Mastodon, Minds and other systems.

John Henry

Bob Boyd said...

I'd like to hear Zukabug define truth.

daskol said...

We just want to live in a world where you help us figure out, like, >90-95% of what's true. Spoken like a true "data scientist."

n.n said...

Thou shalt not speak facts to truth nor register triggers nor utter standard semantics nor expose the bigotry and foibles of mortal gods. Deplatformed!

Milwaukie guy said...

In think the federal government is going to make these tech communication "public square" giants be either publishers or common carriers. I think Zuckerberg is starting to lean to one side.

A common carrier has to give the Nazis a phone line and electricity. But it can't be sued for any bad behavior related to such hookups for the communists and the like.

Rick said...

When did it become a liberal first principle to abolish free speech?

Progressives aren't liberals.

daskol said...

Transparently mendacious, but I have to hand it to Zuckerberg, while I don't believe a word of what he's saying, and some here don't either, we're in a minority. This is excellent PR and his message discipline will increase it's effectiveness as he'll repeat it over and over until he actually has to testify to something similar under oath.

Ingachuck'stoothlessARM said...

Facebook Partners With the Atlantic Council to Fight Election Propaganda

https://fortune.com/2018/05/17/facebook-atlantic-council-election-propaghanda/

Ingachuck'stoothlessARM said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Lewis Wetzel said...

As has been stated in an earlier comment, the problem the Left has is their inability to tell truth from opinion. Was Obama's relationship with Tony Rezko corrupt? Yes, sez I. You may have a different opinion, but it's still just an opinion. If I say that Obama was in a corrupt relationship with Rezko, it is not "fake news." It is not a lie. It is a valid opinion.

rhhardin said...

Shortest path through the thesaurus from truth to lie

truth accuracy delicacy nicety quibble prevarication lie

if the program works right, any three in a row mean the same thing and any four in a row do not.

bagoh20 said...

I have already deplatformed myself from Facebook, and Twitter. Google is a much tougher net to escape.

Browndog said...

Blogger Ken B said...

I think we can now say the Minneapolis attack on Trump rally-goers was not a false flag.
https://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2019/10/how-evil-is-the-left-this-evil.php


I don't know who "we" are, but anyone with any sense knew the only person to ever posit the theory of a false flag was Althouse.

God knows why....

Ingachuck'stoothlessARM said...

zuck speaking power to Truth.

his wife is his chinese handler.

Ingachuck'stoothlessARM said...

'Face' the Truth

Researchers Test Facial Recognition Technology on Transgender Women – It Says They’re Men
By Pluralist | Oct 16, 2019
It turns out that facial recognition technology doesn’t work very well for transgender people.

https://pluralist.com/transgender-facial-recognition-research/49999/

Hammond X. Gritzkofe said...

We outsourced education and health care to unmonitored government bureaucracies. We outsource critical thinking to media (entertainment, "news," and "social") bureaucracies. Because as voters...

Lewis Wetzel said...

Blogger Milwaukie guy said...
. . .

A common carrier has to give the Nazis a phone line and electricity. But it can't be sued for any bad behavior related to such hookups for the communists and the like.


It would destroy Zuckerberg's business model if Facebook became a common carrier. It would destroy Zuckerberg's business model if Facebook became a publisher.

Ingachuck'stoothlessARM said...

didnt that 'publisher' issue get settled?

Facebook Admits It’s a Publisher in Court Filings
https://www.breitbart.com/tech/2019/09/18/facebook-admits-its-a-publisher-in-court-filings/

n.n said...

When did it become a liberal first principle to abolish free speech?

Liberalism is, in principle, divergent (e.g. generational, progressive).

Bob Loblaw said...

It would destroy Zuckerberg's business model if Facebook became a common carrier. It would destroy Zuckerberg's business model if Facebook became a publisher.

That's the crux of the problem. The tech companies are trying to be both and neither at the same time. Lord knows why the courts let them get away with it.

tds said...

more people should watch 'RashĹŤmon'

Aussie Pundit said...

Well, damn, how about that - I agree with Zuckerberg.

On this, he's exactly right. It's not his job to decide which political ads are "truthful."

stlcdr said...

The problem with social media is that people take it too seriously.

It is one of the savage and unenlightened parts of the world we live in - our gladiatorial games, so to speak.