Article • Dean Baker’s Beat the Press
Fact-based, data-driven research and analysis to advance democratic debate on vital issues shaping people’s lives.
Center for Economic and Policy Research
1611 Connecticut Ave. NW
Suite 400
Washington, DC 20009
Tel: 202-293-5380
Fax: 202-588-1356
https://cepr.net
That is undoubtedly what readers are asking after seeing the headline, “Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg struggles to balance truth and free speech.” The headline is for the recording of a remarkably uncritical interview of Zuckerberg.
In the interview, Zuckerberg presents himself as struggling to deal with the trade-off between banning ads that are untrue and allowing free speech. If a reporter had been conducting the interview, they would have pointed out that every newspaper in the country faces the same problem and, unlike Zuckerberg, seem capable of dealing with it.
They will not print ads that they know to be untrue and, if they are shown evidence that an ad is untruthful after it runs, they typically will run a correction. It would have been useful to point this out to readers.