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| Facebook made a secret deal with Donald Trump |
Facebook founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg promised US President Donald Trump that the platform would not review political rhetoric to prevent the Trump administration from enacting new regulations.
This information comes from journalist Max Shafkin's new book "The Contrarian" by Trump supporter and venture capitalist Peter Thiel.
In 2019, it was reported that Facebook founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg and later US President Donald Trump hosted a secret dinner in October.
Zuckerberg was attending a congressional hearing about Facebook's Libra digital currency in Washington, DC at the time. In town, he accepted Trump's invitation to dinner at the White House.
According to an excerpt from the book, the deal was finalized during a dinner at the White House in 2019. The author said that Peter Thiel dined with Mark Zuckerberg and President Jared Kushner's son-in-law Donald Trump and his wife during that time. They gathered in Washington, D.C., to answer questions from Congress.
Dinner was standard, he said on Facebook at the time, a company spokesperson said in 2019: According to the usual practice of the CEO of a large American company, Mark accepted the invitation to dinner with the president and first lady in White. a house. No idea what was discussed during the call.
Shafkin said details of the discussion are confidential. But Thiel later told a close friend that Zuckerberg had reached an understanding with Kushner during dinner, and that Facebook had avoided checking the political speech.
This allows the Trump campaign team to prepare for the 2020 elections while the Trump administration has abandoned strict censorship of social media.
Shafkin writes that the understanding conveyed by Till will enable Facebook to promote what he calls a nationally recognized conservatism.
Facebook promises Trump won't review any political posts
The deal allows Trump and other politicians to continue to express themselves freely on social media without having to re-verify their statements.
As long as the company continues to avoid scrutiny of political rhetoric, Trump will avoid any tough regulations against it.
A month before the dinner, Facebook announced a new policy to exclude politicians' comments from the company's community standards.
In the announcement, the company also reiterated its earlier political promise to also exempt politicians from fact-checking on the platform.
Days after Zuckerberg held a hearing in DC and hosted a dinner at the White House, the company announced another strange move. He worked with far-right website Breitbart to develop a new information tag feature.
This feature aims to provide high quality information to combat the spread of misinformation on the platform. Breitbart is one of the largest providers of disinformation and extremist content. But it is listed in high quality across the platform.
During a live event promoting the news company's new feature, Zuckerberg sidestepped reporters' questions about Breitbart's membership.