“Calling that crazy was dismissive and I regret it,” Zuckerberg wrote in a Facebook post today. “This is too serious an issue to be dismissive.”
Zuckerberg, who unusually refers to the President Donald Trump by name, posted in reply to a tweet Trump sent early Wednesday that called Facebook “anti-Trump.”
Trump didn’t specify what assisted his claim against Facebook, though the social network is currently entangled in an investigation about Russian interference during the 2016 presidential election. Facebook, which confirmed that it sold ads to Russian propagandists, was formally requested today to testify in front of Congress in early November.
“Trump says Facebook is opposite to him,” Zuckerberg wrote. “Liberals say we backed Trump. Both sides are upset about ideas and content they don’t like. That’s what moving a platform for all ideas looks like.”
Zuckerberg’s answer to Trump focused on what he believes to be Facebook’s positive influence on public discourse, specifically last year’s poll. He wrote about “giving people a voice,” and added that “We ran ‘get out the vote’ efforts that supported as many as 2 million people register to vote.”
It’s been a difficult stretch for Facebook since the election. The company has confirmed that users gamed its News Feed algorithm to try and cover misinformation during the election, and also that Facebook sold larger than $100,000 worth of ads to Russian-controlled accounts.
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