Mark Zuckerberg is set to apologize before Congress for the spread of “fake news,” “foreign interference in elections” and violating user privacy.
The prepared testimony that he is set to deliver was released by the House Energy and Commerce Committee on Monday.
Zuckerberg will be appearing before a joint hearing of the Senate Judiciary and Commerce Committee on Tuesday and the House Energy and Commerce Committee on Wednesday.
“As Facebook has grown, people everywhere have gotten a powerful new tool to stay connected to the people they love, make their voices heard, and build communities and businesses. Just recently, we’ve seen the #metoo movement and the March for Our Lives, organized, at least in part, on Facebook. After Hurricane Harvey, people raised more than $20 million for relief. And more than 70 million small businesses now use Facebook to grow and create jobs,” his prepared testimony says.
Zuckerberg goes on to apologize for “preventing these tools from being used for harm,”
“But it’s clear now that we didn’t do enough to prevent these tools from being used for harm as well. That goes for fake news, foreign interference in elections, and hate speech, as well as developers and data privacy. We didn’t take a broad enough view of our responsibility, and that was a big mistake. It was my mistake, and I’m sorry. I started Facebook, I run it, and I’m responsible for what happens here.”
Zuckerberg added that he now wants to better police how people use the platform and disallow speech he finds unsavory.
“It’s not enough to just connect people, we have to make sure those connections are positive,” he wrote. “It’s not enough to just give people a voice, we have to make sure people aren’t using it to hurt people or spread misinformation.”
Additionally, he laid out steps that the company will be taking to control the flow of information.
“We will also require people who manage large pages to be verified as well. This will make it much harder for people to run pages using fake accounts, or to grow virally and spread misinformation or divisive content that way,” he explains.
The Gateway Pundit will be covering this Orwellian nightmare as it unfolds on Capitol Hill this week. Stay tuned.
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