What Facebook Upholding Ban on Trump Really Means

This week, Facebook’s Oversight Board decided to uphold the website’s ban on Donald Trump for his comments on the social media platform on Jan. 6, the day of the attack on the Capitol. The board is now choosing to hand the issue off to CEO Mark Zuckerberg. 

“I’m actually relatively pleased with it because it does enforce that it is a private company … and I believe that Mark Zuckerberg should be responsible for what happens on Facebook.” –Peter Kafka, Recode Media

Some are worried about this decision, questioning who gets to decide what can and can’t be said on social media.  

Listen: Who should make the decisions on social media regulation?

Guest

Peter Kafka is the host of Vox’s Recode, the weekly podcast dedicated to the future of media and technology. He says that he mostly agrees with the Oversight Board’s decision. 

“I’m actually relatively pleased with it because it does enforce that it is a private company,” says Kafka. “And I believe that Mark Zuckerberg should be responsible for what happens on Facebook.”

“He doesn’t want to make them for a bunch of reasons,” Kafka continues. “But I think he should be responsible for them.”

Kafka says that extremism is already woven into the fabric of social media. “I think the bigger problem, frankly, is that most of the social networks are set up to reward extreme behavior and thought and ideas that attracts more attention and those things get amplified.”

On any potential governmental or private regulations to social media, Kafka says, “This is a nuanced problem that probably can’t be solved with one set of rules.”