Facebook's CEO warns of civil discourse and post-election violence

Yahoo Finance’s On the Move panel discuss Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg’s Axios interview where he warns of possible violence and civil unrest following the upcoming 2020 Presidential election.

Video Transcript

ADAM SHAPIRO: Dan, it's a speculative question, but if Zuckerberg is talking about unrest, isn't his company playing into the creation of the discord that would lead to it?

DAN HOWLEY: Yeah, I mean, look, this is, it's the ultimate Pandora's box is what Facebook is. Once you get past, yeah, I mean, look, they had a user base that's larger than every country on earth, right? More than 2.5 billion people are on their network, and they have access to the information that people post. And I don't care how much Mark Zuckerberg says that they are going to monitor and take down posts or ensure that people aren't posting inflammatory rhetoric, he and his company are not equipped to handle the flow of information that goes through that website.

I mean, look, when we had the shooting in New Zealand, the Christchurch shooting that they were trying to take down videos, they were working take down videos, but more and more and more were being shared and posted on that platform. So look, as much as they say they're doing the work to ensure that there's no issues, there are inevitably going to be problems moving forward. And then there's the issue with, well, they talk out of both sides of their mouth.

They're saying we're going to crack down on this type of speech, but then they don't. Or they allow certain politicians to get away with things, or, you know, if there's an issue with President Trump saying something that goes against their policies, well, maybe they'll put a little label on it. They won't take it down. As far as Facebook goes, they're not acting in the way that matches their rules and what they say they want to do.

The company that is doing that is Twitter, and they're getting the most flak for it. Facebook, by the way, there was employee that put together a bunch of information saying that, look, we are being too lenient now on right leaning sites, and that's an over-correction for the company, because they were being accused by right wing politicians and pundits of being biased, when in reality, there's no proof of that whatsoever. But now, it seems there's proof that they are working to provide right wing pundits and politicians with more space to maneuver on the site.

RICK NEWMAN: I think what Facebook mainly is doing is just trying to preemptively deny its own role in whatever might happen, you know, leading up to the election or during the election. I mean, we should point out, Twitter last year banned all political advertising, not for one week or around elections, they banned all of it. They just said, we're not going to deal with this anymore.

And, of course, Facebook has not done that. All they've said is we're not going to accept any new ads for one week prior to the election on November 3. This sets up a really interesting possible scenario, which is, I mean, a lot of election analysts think we may not know the winner on November 3 because of the time it takes to count mail-in ballots.

So if it's close in enough states, it could take days to count all those mail-in ballots. And Twitter, excuse me, Facebook has said, we will allow ads after the election. I think they're going to have to extend that, or they're going to find themselves in a real mess if, you know, it's three or four days after the election, we're still counting mail ballots, and Trump is on Facebook saying, I won.

ADAM SHAPIRO: Rick, I'm curious, because you and I are both old enough to have seen several elections.

RICK NEWMAN: Hey!

ADAM SHAPIRO: This whole-- OK, I'm older than you. No, actually I'm not, but no, but I am. The deal here with this concern about civil unrest, is it getting blown out of proportion? I know there's a great deal of anxiety on both sides, Republicans and Democrats, shouldn't everyone just take a chill pill? I mean, are we blowing it out of proportion?

RICK NEWMAN: I don't think so, to tell you the truth, Adam. And by the way, I don't think Mark Zuckerberg knows anything the rest of us don't know. I think he's just looking at the same source of information we all are. I mean, we have, you know, look at the civil unrest we already have including, you know, armed militias showing up to confront protesters in cities, and a lot of them, you know, there was this one in Portland with the pickup truck caravan. They were all Trump supporters flying Trump flags, so--

ADAM SHAPIRO: But when you talk about militias, I would point out, we've had-- David Koresh, I mean, I forget her name, Linda, they called her militia babe, because she went down there to defend Koresh, and she was surrounded by guys with guns in front of the courthouse in Texas.

RICK NEWMAN: And look how that turned out.

ADAM SHAPIRO: Yeah, terrible.

RICK NEWMAN: I mean, the Branch Davidian, shoot, I don't know how many people died in Waco, but that was a disaster. So if that's what you're thinking of, yeah, I think we should be concerned. And, you know, one other thing that some election analysts have been saying is they're actually encouraging the press to get these ideas out there so that people have kind of the right set of expectations leading into the election in November. So for one thing they say is people do, voters need to understand the odds, that we're not going to have a clean outcome on Election Day. That doesn't mean anybody's cheating, it just means it takes time to count mail-in votes, and people should be prepared for that.