Zuckerberg's remarks come as President Trump is set to sign an Executive Order concerning social media companies after Twitter placed "fact-checks" on a couple of his tweets.
Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg said on Wednesday his company did not share views of Twitter on fact-checking, adding that he does not think that Facebook, or any other platform company, should be in the position to decide what is actually true.
"We have a different policy than, I think, Twitter on this", Zuckerberg said in an interview with the Daily Briefing. "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 also said that government censorship of social was also not the right option.
"I'll have to understand what they actually would intend to do, but in general I think a government choosing to censor a platform because they're worried about censorship doesn't exactly strike me as the right reflex there", he said.
On Tuesday, Trump posted a couple of tweets saying that mail-in ballots would lead to fraud in the November election. Moments later, his tweets were flagged with warning labels that said "Get the facts about mail-in ballots", with the company saying the tweets could "contain potentially misleading information". The label links to a curated page with links and summaries of articles describing how Trump's claims on mail-in ballots are unfounded.
Trump considered the move to be another attempt to silence conservative voices in the United States, warning later that "action would follow".
....happen again. Just like we can’t let large scale Mail-In Ballots take root in our Country. It would be a free for all on cheating, forgery and the theft of Ballots. Whoever cheated the most would win. Likewise, Social Media. Clean up your act, NOW!!!!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) May 27, 2020
The Executive Order, "pertaining to social media", is expected to be signed by the president on Thursday, the White House said, though it is not clear yet what exactly it will contain.
