Highlights: Mark Zuckerberg on Free Expression

CARLY KABOT: Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg spoke at Georgetown University on Thursday about the challenge of free expression on social media. Here are two major takeaways from the event, hosted by the Georgetown Institute of Politics and Public Service.

Strong Stance on Free Expression

In Zuckerberg’s view, Facebook has an obligation to remove content that can cause real danger while upholding as wide of a definition of freedom of expression as possible.

Zuckerberg said the current environment is rife with social tension, driven by the fallout from the 2008 financial crisis, high levels of migration, economic shifts driven by technological innovation, and diverging opinions on important social issues. He said this tension has again been accompanied by calls to pull back on free expression. 

“In times of social tension, our impulse is to pull back on free expression because we want the progress that comes from free expression but we don’t want the tension,” Zuckerberg said. He added that free speech has been curtailed in the United States in the past, and such instances later came to be seen as mistakes. “Pulling back on free speech hurts the minority views that we seek to protect,” he said. 

“We can either continue to stand for free expression, understanding its messiness but believing the long journey towards greater progress requires confronting ideas that challenge us, or we can decide that the cost is simply too great,” Zuckerberg said.

Zuckerberg said he supports strong free speech protections on social media platforms such as Facebook, accepting that “some people are going to use their voice to organize violence, to try to undermine elections, to hurt others.” 

Regarding Facebook’s responsibility in addressing these risks, Zuckerberg said the emphasis is on verifying the authenticity of users’ accounts rather than moderating content. The content posted by Russian trolls during the 2016 U.S. presidential election, for example, would have been “considered permissible political discourse if it had been shared by real American citizens.”

How Social Media Changed Speech

Zuckerberg said upholding free expression in a time of rapidly changing paradigms brings about new challenges. He observed that our commitment to “hold each other’s right to express ourselves above our own desire to always get our way in every debate” is increasingly disputed. Rather than bringing people together, some believe the internet is driving people apart. Political polarization has compelled cultivated a sentiment of distrust, and that “political outcomes” are more important than “every person having a voice and being heard.”

Zuckerberg defended a strong stance on free expression as key to furthering civil rights, especially in countries with limited democratic norms. He said “the ability to speak freely has been central to the fight for democracy worldwide” and noted the impact of social media to end dictatorships in North Africa. 

Without the internet, he said, such large-scale change and powerful social movements would not have been possible in the same way. “People having the power to express themselves at scale is a new kind of force in the world,” he continued.

No longer does the public “have to rely on traditional gatekeepers in politics or media to make their voices heard,” he said. He views platforms like Facebook as decentralizing power by “putting it directly into people’s hands.” The world has long witnessed the expansion of voice through law and culture. Today, it is technology’s turn. 

Zuckerberg identified another major threat to preserving free expression at this crossroads: A country such as China could acquire enough influence to set the rules for political discourse on social media according to an undemocratic different set of values.

Nonetheless, Zuckerberg said he remained confident in a trying era. “As long as our governments respect people’s right to express themselves, as long as our platforms live up to their responsibilities to support expression and prevent harm, and as long as we all commit to being open and making space for more perspectives, I think we are going to make progress.”

Carly Kabot is a freshman in the School of Foreign Service from Westchester, New York. She is an aspiring political journalist.