Is Facebook growing too close to Trump?

Employees have grown increasingly outspoken about a pattern of ignoring misinformation spread on the platform by President Trump and his supporters

Mark Zuckerberg.
(Image credit: Graeme Jennings-Pool/Getty Images)

The smartest insight and analysis, from all perspectives, rounded up from around the web:

An "alliance of convenience" has been forged between the White House and the world's largest social network, said Sarah Frier and Kurt Wagner at Bloomberg Businessweek. "Facebook executives often point out that the company was seen as overly friendly to Democrats during the Obama years," and the Right continues to levy accusations of "anti-conservative bias." But employees have grown increasingly outspoken about a pattern of ignoring misinformation spread on the platform by President Trump and his supporters. Facebook made "rules against giving incorrect information about how to vote, but then froze when Trump actually put it to the test" in May. Facebook's head of policy, Joel Kaplan, vetoed a tweak of the news-feed algorithm after traffic began to drop for right-wing news outlets such as Fox and Breitbart. More recently, Facebook "seemed to back off" its voter registration efforts this summer after Republicans complained, reducing a two-day July 4 promotion across all its platforms to "a one-day push on Facebook alone."

Subscribe to The Week

Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.

SUBSCRIBE & SAVE
https://cdn.mos.cms.futurecdn.net/flexiimages/jacafc5zvs1692883516.jpg

Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

Sign up
To continue reading this article...
Continue reading this article and get limited website access each month.
Get unlimited website access, exclusive newsletters plus much more.
Cancel or pause at any time.
Already a subscriber to The Week?
Not sure which email you used for your subscription? Contact us