Zuckerberg Challenged by Civil Rights Leaders on Misinformation

(Bloomberg) -- Facebook Inc. Chief Executive Officer Mark Zuckerberg was urged by civil rights activists during a dinner at his home to push the company to more aggressively root out election misinformation and voter suppression on its social-media platforms.Civil rights leaders, including Al Sharpton, also asked Zuckerberg to prioritize civil rights more vigorously inside the company. The dinner Monday, which lasted about two hours at Zuckerberg’s Palo Alto, California, home, included discussion on topics like voter suppression and misinformation campaigns heading into the 2020 U.S. elections, plus tactics being used to keep people off the voter rolls ahead of the census, according to Sharpton and Rashad Robinson, president of the advocacy group Color of Change, who were among the attendees.Facebook has been under scrutiny on issues including election manipulation, privacy lapses and potential antitrust actions. Civil rights activists took particular issue with the company when researchers found Russian operatives used Facebook to target African American voters with misinformation and voter suppression efforts during the 2016 presidential campaign.Zuckerberg, who was joined by Facebook executives including Chief Operating Officer Sheryl Sandberg and head of global policy Nick Clegg, was encouraged to embed civil rights experts in the company who would be alert to nuances in the political discourse -- such as calls for voters to stand their ground -- that Sharpton said are meant to suppress votes even though it might not appear that way.“We said free speech has to be done within the framework of public safety and abiding by the law,” Sharpton told Bloomberg. “Breaking the law in our opinion is any engagement in knowingly being involved in voter suppression.”Robinson said Facebook needs to build civil rights into its company DNA.Facebook needs a “C-suite-level team that is focused on civil rights,” Robinson said. This group would look at things like Facebook’s artificial intelligence efforts, algorithms, ads and content to provide the company with “a lens by which civil rights is viewed.““We’re grateful that these prominent leaders of the civil rights community took the time to attend a private dinner hosted by Mark and Sheryl,” a Facebook spokeswoman said. “They discussed a range of important issues and we look forward to continuing these conversations.”The conversation was respectful and engaging, according to attendees, and Zuckerberg asked a lot of questions. He reiterated points he’s made publicly about the role he wants Facebook to play as a center of debate and concerns about the company acting as an arbiter in U.S. political discourse, Sharpton said.Facebook executives didn’t make any promises about how or what they might do to address the activists’ concerns, attendees said.“The implication was that he is thinking through how to get to the right place,” Sharpton said. “I think the fact that he had the meeting and had it in his home, not that he had others do it or even meet at his office, was a signal that he’s directly looking into this.”“I felt like we had a substantive and respectful conversation that was robust,” Robinson added. “Whether or not we were heard will depend on their actions.”To contact the reporters on this story: Kurt Wagner in San Francisco at kwagner71@bloomberg.net;Ben Brody in Washington, D.C. at btenerellabr@bloomberg.netTo contact the editors responsible for this story: Jillian Ward at jward56@bloomberg.net, Andrew Pollack, Dan ReichlFor more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.com©2019 Bloomberg L.P.