MENLO PARK, CA—In an effort to ensure the impartiality of content shared on its platform, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg announced Wednesday that the company would address accusations of silencing conservative voices by deleting Barack Obama’s profile. “I want to give all our valued right-leaning users my full assurance that we share your concerns about freedom of expression, which is why, effective immediately, Obama has been completely scrubbed from our site,” said CEO Mark Zuckerberg, telling reporters that users across the ideological spectrum could feel comfortable using the site now that the 44th president had received a lifetime ban on his account and would be prohibited from attempting to start a new profile. “Our platform works best when everyone can freely share their ideas. We believe that removing the pages of the former president and the Obama Foundation, as well as automatically flagging terms like ‘Obamacare’ and ‘Yes We Can,’ will help allow users to connect without feeling like Facebook is playing favorites.” Zuckerberg added that this was only the first step to confront the problem of censorship, saying that Facebook would proceed to delete the profiles of Michelle Obama, Joe Biden, Hillary Clinton, Nancy Pelosi, and as many others as it would take until conservatives feel fully represented.

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