Oversight

Facebook Is Too Big to Be Controlled

Ahead of another election, Mark Zuckerberg’s company is under pressure not to spread fake news again. But that’s an impossible ask.

With an image of himself on a screen in the background, Facebook co-founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg testifies before the House Financial Services Committee in the Rayburn House Office Building on Capitol Hill October 23, 2019 in Washington, DC. Photo: Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images

Once again, Mark Zuckerberg was back on Capitol Hill to defend his company.

The Facebook founder was grilled Wednesday by members of the House Financial Services Committee in a wide-ranging hearing that touched on election interference, the tech behemoth’s planned cryptocurrency, and misleading political ads. It’s that last issue — whether to allow politicians to continue to pay for ads that may have misleading or false content in them — which has proven to be the most pressing controversy for Facebook in recent weeks.

“Do you see a potential problem here with a complete lack of fact checking of political advertisements?” Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez asked in a viral clip of the hearing.

Ocasio-Cortez’s questioning points to a serious issue that leaves users in a terrible spot no matter what the tech giant decides: Should it take down more content at the risk of damaging free speech, or should it play a hands-off role, even if doing so allows nefarious posts to flourish? (I generally side with free expression, even if Zuckerberg is being…