This week, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg publicly denounced the political positions of his presidential campaign Donald Trump during his speech at the company's annual F8 conference.
"I hear voices that are afraid of building walls and distancing themselves from people they call 'others,'" Zuckerberg said, without naming Trump.
"I hear calls for blocking free expression, slowing down migration, reducing trade, and, in some cases, even blocking internet access."
This year's F8 showed that the 31 billionaire is willing to get involved in the public political scene. Zuckerberg has been a sponsor of campaigns in the past, but it was not clear who he was supporting, or Facebook's policy for such actions.
Inside Facebook, the political debate was clearer. Last month, some Facebook employees used a company poll to ask Zuckerberg if the company should try to "help block Trump's 2017 election."
Each week, Facebook employees vote in an internal poll on what they want to ask Zuckerberg at the upcoming Q&A session. One question in the March 4 poll was:
"What responsibilities does Facebook have in helping oust Trump in 2017?"
It's clear that some Facebook employees are anti-Trump. Of course the company's policy seems to align with that of Silicon Valley as a whole: pro-immigration, pro-trade, and extension of Internet.
It should be noted here that more than 1.040 million people use Facebook. It is the place where newcomers find themselves, share their opinions (political or not) and interact with friends, celebrities and politicians.
And Facebok, of course, has no legal responsibility and can give some filtered view of what's going on in their network.
"Facebook can promote or block any material it wants," said UCLA law professor Eugene Volokh at Gizmodo.
"Facebook uses the same right as the First Amendment gives the right used by the New York Times. They can completely block Trump, if they want to. To prevent him or to promote him.
But Facebok is not a mass media and is not designed to let us know if many people use it for it.
It is not a newspaper, magazine or news website.
If Facebook decides to tamper with its algorithm, it can change what we see, just as an editor decides what goes in the first σελίδα, or what should not appear.
The difference is that traditional media readers (including the web) can be trained (learn) in the company's political orientation and choose what to read.
Of course this practice promotes one-sided information ύ vicious circle…
Continuing with the Facebook phenomenon, we should mention that it has the potential to reach far more readers than any other website.
With Facebook, no one knows what he sees, which political party he supports, what his guidelines are. So we can not know how it can affect the way we see the world.
For those who do not remember, Facebook has "played" very dirty in the past.
During the presidential election of 2012, Facebook has secretly sneaked 1.900.000 feeds. The company has also falsified news feeds, 2010 during an experiment with 61 experimental millions of people to find out how it could affect the real world.
2012, Facebook has experimented with the feelings of its users. The company, again, secretly falsified 700.000 news feeds of people and concluded that it can basically make you feel what you want to feel.
So regardless of your political aspirations, the story with Trump comes to remind us of the role of the social network in the way we live, act, and feel.
However, there are still many who believe that they read…
