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Mark Zuckerberg Takes Hard Stance Against China And Censorship In Georgetown University Speech

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Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg spoke to a crowd of students, academics and journalists at Georgetown University on Thursday amid increasing criticism for the way Facebook handles misinformation, political advertising and false claims on the network.

The 35-year-old billionaire’s live-streamed speech was a rare forum for the notoriously private tech founder. Both he and Facebook have typically relied on company blog posts and private meetings to tackle criticism. His speech at Georgetown was one of the first widely broadcast monologues from Zuckerberg on freedom of speech, echoing the framework of a political stump speech.

Investors appeared mostly unmoved by the public appearance. Facebook stock was up only 0.44% at the time this article was published.

“I wanted our services in China ... but we could never come to an agreement on what it would take for us to operate there.”

Mark Zuckerberg

The hour-long monologue covered a range of topics including Zuckerberg’s carefully-worded thoughts on content moderation, censorship and the role tech platforms should play in democracy. One topic stood out above all else: Zuckerberg’s stance on China.

“I wanted our services in China because I believe in connecting the whole world, and I thought maybe we could help create a more open society,” Zuckerberg said. “But we could never come to an agreement on what it would take for us to operate there. They never let us in.”

The frosty assessment contrasted to statements he’s made in the recent past, particularly around the efforts he made beginning in 2015 to gain access to China’s 802 million internet users (about 57.7% of China’s total population).

Zuckerberg reportedly went as far as asking Chinese president Xi Jinping at a White House dinner in 2015 to offer a Chinese name for his unborn daughter (the privilege is typically reserved for older relatives and sometimes fortune tellers). Xi reportedly declined to suggest a name.

During his remarks at Georgetown today, Zuckerberg took several swipes at the Chinese government’s censorship campaigns and free-speech crackdowns, including a direct remark about TikTok, the Chinese-developed social media app that has already garnered 500 million global monthly active users and could be Facebook’s greatest business threat.

“While our services like WhatsApp are used by protestors and activists everywhere due to strong encryption and privacy protections, on TikTok—the Chinese app growing quickly around the world—mentions of these same protests are censored, even here in the U.S.,” Zuckerberg said. “Is that the internet that we want?”

Facebook has been under increasing pressure from politicians in recent weeks for the way it handles information and political posts. Democratic presidential candidate Senator Elizabeth Warren has openly attacked the company for its ambiguous ad policy, which exempts any politician from the company’s rules on spreading misinformation. 

Last week, Senator Warren placed an ad on Facebook that intentionally included false claims about Zuckerberg endorsing Donald Trump in the 2020 presidential election and openly accused Facebook of “taking money to promote lies.”

Warren’s advertisement came only days after tech news website The Verge published leaked audio in which Zuckerberg told employees that an Elizabeth Warren presidency would “suck” for the company. Zuckerberg was likely responding to Senator Warren’s Medium blog post earlier this year where she outlined how and why she would break up tech giants like Amazon, Google and Facebook if she is elected president in 2020.

Zuckerberg has held private, off-the-record dinners with several prominent conservative pundits and commentators in recent months to discuss free speech, according to a Politico report.

On Thursday, Zuckerberg positioned Facebook as an American-values-based company that champions free speech by allowing anyone to publish any of their thoughts, so long as they do not immediately threaten physical harm to anyone.

“I don’t believe that not fact-checking political ads is pro-conservative,” he said. “It’s pro-challenger. I believe that banning political ads favors incumbents ... and favors people who the media would choose not to cover.”

Zuckerberg did not address other controversial Facebook tools such as microtargeting and encryption.

You can watch the full speech below.

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