Facebook, Twitter play Pontius Pilate to Trump's Herod

It’s been more than 16 years since he founded Facebook, and Mark Zuckerberg still hasn’t figured it out. Or maybe he just wants to have it both ways.

Speaking on how government should regulate social media in February, he suggested a model “somewhere in between” the newspapers and “this telco model, which is ‘the data just flows through you.’”

Having it both ways would mean Facebook wants the credibility of a newspaper — which it clearly covets — and the accountability of a telephone line (or the lack thereof). That it wants the public’s trust without having to earn or maintain it. And it sure doesn’t want to get sued over it.

Zuckerberg didn’t explain what he meant by “somewhere in between” or how such a position could even be achieved.

It’s kind of hard, actually.

Newspapers have traditionally played the role of gatekeepers, so here’s an analogy for you: If you station a guard at the city gates, he’s responsible for making sure an enemy doesn’t get past him. If you leave the gates unguarded and an enemy happens to show up .... well, the people inside are on their own.    

And enemies are going to show up. Count on it. Facebook, Twitter and other social media platforms are virtual cesspools filled with hackers, trolls and haters just waiting for an opportunity to spew falsehoods and turn users against one another.

So, which is it? Does Facebook want a guard who’s just on duty some of the time? Who only lets some enemies in, but not others? And if so, which ones?

Electronic newspaper

Whether Zuckerberg likes it or not, Facebook is a lot more like a newspaper than a telephone line. By late last year, 55 percent of adults in the United States said they got their news from social media “often” or “sometimes.”

It would seem that Facebook is taking over a role previously filled by the traditional press. Some circumstantial evidence: As Facebook, Twitter and Instagram have grown more popular, newspapers have tanked. Now, it’s true that correlation is not causation, and other factors are in play, but there’s little doubt that social media platforms have played a significant part in the demise of newspapers.

The question therefore arises: If they’re taking over the role once filled by newspapers, shouldn’t they take on the responsibility that goes with it?

Before answering that question, it’s worth noting that a lot of people don’t want them to do that — at least, that’s what they say. They don’t want a middleman telling them what they can and can’t read; they want to make those decisions themselves. Who can blame them? But are we, the public, really up to the task?

Do we really have the time and energy to sift through hundreds, thousands or millions of news sources, then fact-check them to make sure they’re accurate? I don’t know about you, but I sure don’t.

Fame and defame

This frustration with the middleman is nothing new. The same people who complain about social media serving as a gatekeeper griped when newspapers did the same thing. Whenever readers disagreed with a headline, a story, or an editorial position taken by the daily paper, they called it a “useless rag” or “scandal sheet.”

Then, some of them wrote letters to the editor — and complained again if theirs didn’t get printed.

Sometimes, it was because of limited space; sometimes, though, it was for legal reasons. When I worked as a newspaper editor, and I saw a letter accusing someone of something I knew was false, I wouldn’t print it. For one thing, it could lead to a defamation lawsuit. For another, it was just plain wrong. An innocent person could get hurt, and why should any editor want to be part of that?

Defamation is harder to prove if the alleged victim is a public figure. If you’re a private party, all you have to do is prove negligence. If you’re a public figure, you have to prove the accused acted with “actual malice.” This is pretty hard to do, because it goes beyond the person’s actions (which may not even be in dispute) and involves the person’s state of mind.

Hands off

Like it or not, Facebook is a lot more like a newspaper than a telephone company, and it knows this —even if it may not admit it. Actions speak louder than words: The platform employs 35,000 people to review its content. Show me a telephone company that does that.

But when it comes to Donald Trump (or other political figures), Facebook wants to act like a telephone company: It won’t lift a finger to keep Trump from issuing false statements, presumably because the First Amendment protects speech concerning “politics, nationalism, religion or other matters of opinion.”

That definition doesn’t always apply to Trump’s statements, though. Just because a politician says something doesn’t make it a political speech. “I want a bologna sandwich” isn’t a political statement just because it came out of Trump’s mouth.

This brings us to his latest social media tirade. Voiced on Facebook’s rival (and Trump’s favorite mouthpiece), Twitter, it insinuated that MSNBC host Joe Scarborough was responsible for the death of a woman almost two decades ago — even though Scarborough was hundreds of miles away and an autopsy showed her death was an accident brought on by a medical condition:

“‘Concast’ should open up a long overdue Florida Cold Case against Psycho Joe Scarborough ... I know him and Crazy Mika well, used them beautifully in the last Election, dumped them nicely, and will state on the record that he is “nuts”. Besides, bad ratings! #OPENJOECOLDCASE”

Back-assward

Scarborough, like Trump, is a public figure, so the bar for defamation is higher: actual malice. But it’s hard to see anything but malice in a false statement that labels its target “Psycho.” Yet Twitter refused to remove the post, even when the woman’s widower (who is, incidentally, not a public figure) contacted the company and pleaded with it to do so.

The question is, why?

Should public figures be able to get away with accusing others falsely simply because they’re public figures? Do fame, wealth and political power give people the right to defame others with impunity? Those in charge of social media platforms appear to think so. Or, maybe, they don’t think so, but they’re just scared to death of losing revenue if the famous, wealthy politician in question decides to attack them.

It’s true, of course, that newspapers and other mainstream media outlets have also printed Trump’s words. But there are a couple of differences:

• Those words have already been thrust into the public arena and widely disseminated, when they appeared on Twitter. If Trump did an exclusive interview with a major daily newspaper and said the same thing, would that newspaper print it? I doubt it (and I certainly hope not).

• Any newspaper worth its salt that prints a quote like Trump’s will also fact-check it for readers. Anne Gearan of The Washington Post, for instance, clearly labeled Trump’s post a “baseless conspiracy theory.”

Twitter wouldn’t even do that.    

Scary arguments

A New York Post editorial provided lame justification for Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey’s decision, saying that if he were to ban Trump from Twitter (or, presumably remove or flag the Scarborough tweet as false), he would be making a “political statement.”

Ummm. No. He would be making a statement of fact.

But The Post has apparently bought into the notion that everything should be viewed through a political lens. What matters is whether something’s red or blue, conservative or liberal, pro- or anti-Trump. That’s the kind of thinking that allows for the dissemination of bad science when it comes to the coronavirus or climate change, for example. Science doesn’t matter. Facts don’t matter. Only your ideology does.

That’s scary, because spreading false ideas about science can get a people killed — a lot of people. Nature doesn’t care about your political persuasion. It’ll look you straight in the eye and slay you with the facts you decide to ignore in the service of your ideology.

Public service?

Another scary thing about The Post’s position is that it buys into the false notion that every statement made by a politician is inherently political — and therefore should be protected. Under that rationale, political office holders would be free to bully, threaten, defame and ruin ordinary citizens without any consequence. And, of course, that’s precisely what Trump routinely tries to do.

Suddenly, we’re no longer in a representative democracy, where elected officials serve the nation’s citizens, but rather in a system that protects elected officials who verbally abuse and defame those same citizens.

That’s a step away from democracy and toward tyranny.

Maybe Twitter couldn’t get sued over Trump’s tweets, but there’s something more than legal liability at stake here. How Dorsey and Zuckerberg can sleep each night knowing that they’re giving the most powerful man in the world a platform to push false accusations against innocent citizens is a question you’ll have to ask them.

They can say “Who, me?” all they want. They can claim social media platforms are as brainless and amoral as a telephone line. But like it or not, they’re involved. They’re enablers. Accessories. Accomplices. Maybe not in a legal sense, but certainly in an ethical one. Because, here’s the thing: Washing your hands of something doesn’t make you any less responsible for the pain you help inflict.

Just ask Pontius Pilate.