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Donald Trump and Mark Zuckerberg (photo: White House)
This week on CounterSpin: A recent Washington Post report tracks how Facebook has accommodated Donald Trump, allowing him to post false, incendiary and racist comments that would get another person sanctioned. Facebook, the paper reports, “has constrained its efforts against false and misleading news, adopted a policy explicitly allowing politicians to lie, and even altered its news feed algorithm to neutralize claims that it was biased against conservative publishers,” according to former and current employees and company documents.
It’s an incredibly important issue at a platform one-and-a-half billion people use, and that is, for many, replacing actual news outlets as a source of information. Activists have complained for years, but a current campaign is getting some traction. It’s called Stop Hate for Profit, and it’s the work of a coalition of groups, one of which is Free Press. We’ll hear about what organizers want to change with Free Press co-CEO Jessica González.
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Plus Janine Jackson takes a quick look at media looking abroad rather than at home for the roots of Trump’s authoritarianism, and also at journalists beginning to realize that you can’t always trust the police.
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Transcript: ‘Hate Speech and Disinformation Flow on Facebook’
Oops you need to call yourself out for an ambiguous title, which without context reads the opposite way.
It says: Jessica Gonzalez on Facebook Promoting Hate”
That sounds like she is the one promoting it. Try “J G About Fb Promoting Hate”?
I rarely miss Counterspin. Consistently stimulating education. Thank you Janine.
While Facebook’s reach and power are a genuine concern, I question the wisdom of using corporate advertising as the vehicle for change. The corporations named in the interview gained an immediate public relations ad. Do we really want to elevate corporate power? Do we want to use our identity as consumers to make change that is arguably in defiance of that identity?
Hey Janine, how about some examples of President Trump’s racist remarks? I haven’t heard them. I’ve heard all of the criticisms from people on the left, but none are racist. They may be truths that are uncomfortable for people on the left, but that doesn’t make it racist.