Facebook Admits: We ‘Can’t Guarantee’ We’re Good for Democracy

Facebook conceded Monday that social media may not be entirely good for democracy but said it is working to prevent interference in elections by outside actors—from Russia or others. “I wish I could guarantee that the positives are destined to outweigh the negatives, but I can’t,” said Samidh Chakrabarti, Facebook’s product manager for civic engagement, adding that the company has a “moral duty to understand how these technologies are being used and what can be done to make communities like Facebook as representative, civil, and trustworthy as possible.” Facebook has previously admitted that, in advance of the 2016 election, Russian agents created at least 80,000 posts with false or misleading information, which reached about 126 million people in just two years. Despite the company’s attempts to combat such interference, Chakrabarti said the “battle will never end.” He added, “Misinformation campaigns are not amateur operations. They are professionalized and constantly try to game the system. We will always have more work to do.”