Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg told a packed audience in San Francisco this week that he is going to focus on "awesome products" going forward and is done apologizing.
Speaking at the Chase Center on the Acquired podcast, Zuckerberg told hosts David Rosenthal and Ben Gilbert all that he has learned in the 20 years since launching the social media game changer known as Facebook. While the discussion touched on Meta's plans for future devices and Zuckerberg's own laments as to the direction of social media, much of it centered on Facebook's content moderation issues.
In 2016, many on the left blamed Facebook for the popularity and eventual election of former President Donald Trump. Yet, four years later, it was Republicans calling Facebook to task for its admitted censorship at the behest of the Biden administration.
In August, Zuckerberg sent a letter to the House Judiciary Committee acknowledging that the company had been pressured to censor COVID-19 related content the Biden White House did not agree with. He also admitted to suppressing the Hunter Biden laptop story during the months prior to the 2020 election.
"Some of the things they were asserting that we were doing or were responsible for, I don't actually think we were," said Zuckerberg. "When it's a political problem … there are people operating in good faith who are identifying a problem and want something to be fixed, and there are people who are just looking for someone to blame."
The 40-year-old tech entrepreneur added, "I don't apologize for anything anymore."
Meta eventually restored all of Trump's accounts on Facebook and Instagram, which were restricted following the Jan. 6, 2021, riots at the U.S. Capitol. Zuckerberg said that if he is called to censor speech on his platforms in the future he would "push back if something like this happens again."
James Morley III ✉
James Morley III is a writer with more than two decades of experience in entertainment, travel, technology, and science and nature.
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