Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg became the central content of several fake news after he said that social media sites should not play “arbiters of truth” and “should not verify social media posts”.
An Australian satire website Shovel wrongly claimed him to be ‘dead’ whereas another satirical site Chaser falsely termed him as a ‘child molester’.
In an interview with Fox News, Zuckerberg was asked to comment on Twitter fact-checking one of the tweets made by US President Donald Trump.
“I just believe strongly that Facebook shouldn’t be the arbiter of truth of everything that people say online. Private companies probably shouldn’t be, especially these platform companies, shouldn’t be in the position of doing that,” Zuckerberg said in reply.
However, Zuckerberg’s comments did not go down well with the Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey who later tweeted that “this does not make us an ‘arbiter of truth.’ “
“Our intention is to connect the dots of conflicting statements and show the information in dispute so people can judge for themselves,” he added.
Zuckerberg had faced criticism for not being able to stop the spread of rampant misinformation on Facebook.