Zuckerberg clarifies statements on treatment of fake news

Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg clarifies his stance pertaining to Holocaust deniers after getting some blowback on social media.

Speaking with Recode’s Kara Swisher, Zuckerberg, who is Jewish, says in an interview published Wednesday that posts denying the Holocaust took place would not be removed automatically. Zuckerberg says he thinks that there are things “that different people get wrong,” and that he doesn’t think they are “intentionally” getting it wrong.

At this point, Swisher cuts in and said that in the case of Holocaust deniers, it may be intentionally wrong.

Zuckerberg responds by saying that “It’s hard to impugn intent and to understand the intent.”

The portion of the interview was about hate speech and its potential impact in regions of strife led to an outcry online, and Zuckerberg followed with an email to Swisher attempting to expand on what he had said.

“I personally find Holocaust denial deeply offensive, and I absolutely didn’t intend to defend the intent of people who deny that,” Zuckerberg write in an email, which was published by Recode.

The goal of Facebook is not to prevent someone from saying something untrue, he said, but to stop fake news from spreading across the social network.

If something is deemed to be fake, he said, it might remain on the site, but it would be pushed down in the news feed so fewer people would see it.

— AP