Facebook chief operating officer Sheryl Sandberg has denied that the company's involvement with political advertising has anything to ...
Facebook chief operating officer Sheryl Sandberg has denied that the company's involvement with political advertising has anything to do with any kind of financial gain whatsoever.
The company has consistently refused to take down ads even if they openly lie about their political opponents.
It has fast made political advertising one of the most toxic parts of Facebook.
Speaking at Vanity Fair's New Establishment Summit in Los Angeles, Sandberg said political advertising brings in very little money for the company.
During a combative interview, interviewer Katie Couric pressed Sandberg on why Facebook claimed it was tackling fake news on its platform, but then announced it would not fact-check political ads.
She also questioned whether Sandberg's best-selling book Lean In, which promotes her philosophy of women's roles in the boardroom and how to achieve their goals in business, fitted into the #MeToo era.
Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg's stated that whether political ad posts are fake or not, it adds to the 'discourse' and that the company 'wasn't doing it for the money'
Sandberg stated Facebook how Facebook has improved security to filter fake news and hate speech. She was speaking at Vanity Fair's New Establishment Summit in Los Angeles
Couric began by tackling Sandberg on Facebook's fake news policies and how 'secret groups' posting misleading content would be prevented with a presidential election in 2020.
She asked: 'Why did Facebook announce not to fact check political ads last month? The Rand Corporation actually has a term for this, ''truth decay''.
'Mark [Zuckerberg] himself has defended this decision even as the press have expressed concerns about the erosion of truth online. What is the rationale for that?'
Sandberg replied that political ads do not make the company much money.
She said: 'It's not for the money, let's start there. This is a very small part of our revenue. It's very small, very small. And it is very controversial. We're not doing this for the money.
'We take political ads because we really believe they are part of political discourse,' Sandberg added.
'If you look at this over time, the people who have most benefited from being able to run ads are people who are not covered by the media so they can get their message out.'
Sandberg stated that Facebook would be introducing an ad labeling system, saying each spot would be verified and identified by who paid for the placement.
.@KatieCouric asks Facebook’s Sheryl Sandberg: “How worried are you about your personal legacy, as a result of your association with this company?”
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She also made a point of stating that if 'something is hate or bullying, it comes down' but if something is fake, 'We don't take it off'.
'It is the price of free speech. That means there is going to be all the beauty and all the ugliness of humanity... We are going to fight to keep the bad off but keep the good going,' Sandberg said.
Couric then questioned whether Sandberg's book 'put too much onus on women to change' rather than corporations to alter their workplace culture.
She asked: 'Given the systemic failures of so many organizations that we've seen, who have tolerated sexual misconduct and harassment, silenced women through NDAs, do you think, in retrospect, given the very real revelations that have surfaced as a result of the MeToo movement, ''Lean In'' might have put too much of the onus on women to change, instead of getting a lot of these screwed-up companies to change?'
Sandberg then told the stunned audience: 'If you read, actually read, what we've written and the work my foundation has done, what we've always said is that we want it to be OK for women to be ambitious, and we want companies to change. It has to be both.'
The interview went on with Couric challenging Sandberg over Mark Zuckerberg's proposal to protect users from fake news.
Couric asked whether she believed a team of 35,000 new Facebook content monitors would be able to manage the posts from 2.2 billion active users.
'The moderators are looking for content, the engineers are looking for fake accounts. That's the only way to find [them],' Sandberg said.
'We're taking down millions of fake accounts per day,' Sandberg stated.
But Couric was still on the attack and was presented with a quote from Alex Stamos, Facebook's former chief security officer who resigned in 2018.
'My real fear is that in 2020, it is going to be the battle of the billionaires, of secret groups working for people aligned on both sides, who are trying to manipulate us at scale, online,' Couric quoted Stamos.
'What is Facebook doing to defend the platform against this kind of domestic threat?'
Sandberg said that Facebook's transparency is changing and noted that content pages will now receive geotags identifying their origin points whether they like it or not.
Interviewer Couric proceeded to challenge Sandberg, claiming Facebook operated with a double-standard which apply to professional news organizations but not their own platform.
Couric highlighted a quote written by Vanita Gupta, the former head of the DOJ's civil rights arm.
'Simply put, while major news organizations strengthen fact-checking and accountability, Facebook is saying if you are a politician who wishes to peddle in lies, distortion and not-so-subtle racial appeals, welcome to our platform.
'We will not fact-check. You are automatically newsworthy. You are automatically exempt from scrutiny,' Gupta's quote read.
Sandberg responded by insisting that damaging posts promoting hate, violence and terror are removed.
'It's really not about ads. It's about content on the platform. Hate, violence, terror. It immediately comes down.'
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