(FiveNation)- Adam Mosseri, the head of Instagram, admitted in a Twitter post on Monday that members of staff at Facebook – the social media company that owns Instagram – do have a political bias.
“We’re not neutral,” he admitted. “No platform is neutral, we all have values and those values influence the decisions we make.”
We’re not neutral. No platform is neutral, we all have values and those values influence the decisions we make. We try and be apolitical, but that’s increasingly difficult, particularly in the US where people are more and more polarized.
— Adam Mosseri 😷 (@mosseri) January 11, 2021
Interesting…haven’t the social media networks been saying the exact opposite for years?
Mosseri made the comment in response to a tweet by Twitter user Will Oremus, who was responding to former British Deputy Prime Minister and now-VP of Global Affairs at Facebook, Nick Clegg.
Clegg announced that Roy Austin would be joining Facebook as VP of Civil rights, and establish a new civil rights team at Facebook. Oremus said that it’s the kind of move that Facebook “could have made 5+ years ago if it hadn’t been so intent at the time on portraying itself as a neutral platform.”
Mosseri added that they “try to be apolitical” but that it is becoming “increasingly difficult” in the United States where people are more polarized.
Like that’s an excuse.
The comments by Oremus also expose the left’s obsession with establishing social media as firmly a platform for leftists, and not as a neutral online square for everyone to share their opinions and thoughts without censorship.
The issue of online censorship is a hot topic right now after President Donald Trump was permanently suspended from Twitter and his Facebook account suspended indefinitely. The decision was made by Facebook and other social media giants after a peaceful protest erupted into violence on Capitol Hill on January 6.
Sheryl Sandberg, a Facebook representative, told Reuters that she is glad they stepped in and banned the president. Social media networks, just like Congressional Democrats, used flawed logic to justify their bans, including the inaccurate claim that the president encouraged or incited the violent riot.
“In this moment, the risk to our democracy was too big that we felt we had to take the unprecedented step of what is an indefinite ban,” Sandberg told Reuters. “And I’m glad we did.”
The FBI revealed on Wednesday that the unrest in Washington, D.C. was pre-planned and not encouraged by President Donald Trump, meaning the social media networks acted presumptively.
No platform has since apologised for inaccurately suggesting the president incited violence.
