Bloomberg tech journalist absolves Facebook of Trump blame
A tech journalist at Bloomberg has spoken out in defence of social network Facebook amid accusations that its role in propagating so-called ‘fake news’ to its members was a crucial factor behind the elevation of Donald Trump as US president.
Asked by Recode whether Facebook’s belated crackdown on the medium, when it finally moved to quash fake news stories last month by tweaking its trending feature to punish demonstrably false or misleading material, Stone expressed sympathy for the moral quandary in which its executives became mired - pointing out that you cannot please everyone all the time.
Stone remarked: “Donald Trump won, or he got the majority of the electoral votes, a large majority. I think it would be patronizing to say that the majorities of people in Florida and Ohio, smaller majorities in Wisconsin and Michigan, that they voted for him because they were misled by something on Facebook.
“They have their beliefs, and I think it’s up to everyone who doesn’t agree with those beliefs, to the Democratic party, to go and enlist those people, to make your argument to them, and not to go and blame technology companies. I think Facebook has a lot of work to do to make sure people are seeing meaningful things and not garbage. But I don’t think you can lay the current situation at the feet of the companies.”
Addressing wider issues of morality raised by the episode Stone cast his mind back to the formation of Apple, stating: “I don’t remember Steve Jobs saying anything about the Gulf War and the invasion of Iraq.”