Zuckerberg admits he was wrong on fake news

Mark Zuckerberg has admitted that he was wrong to deny the role played by Facebook in spreading ‘fake news’.

Mark Zuckerberg saying calling the idea than misinformation on Facebook changed the outcome of the election was crazy “was dismissive and I regret it”. Picture: Getty Images

Mark Zuckerberg has admitted that he was wrong to deny the role played by Facebook in spreading “fake news” during the US presidential election following an attack by Donald Trump.

Responding to a tweet by Trump, Zuckerberg posted a 393-word comment on his Facebook page in response to a tweet sent early Wednesday that called the company “anti-Trump”.

“After the election, I made a comment that I thought the idea misinformation on Facebook changed the outcome of the election was a crazy idea,” Zuckerberg wrote. “Calling that crazy was dismissive and I regret it.”

Even though Facebook is now the world’s biggest publisher, Zuckerberg has been at pains to deny the online behemoth is a media company, and should accept the same responsibilities as a publisher.

Trump didn’t specify what prompted his claim against Facebook, though the social network is on the back foot in Washington.

Facebook was always anti-Trump.The Networks were always anti-Trump hence,Fake News, @nytimes(apologized) & @WaPo were anti-Trump. Collusion?

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) September 27, 2017

It faces calls for tighter regulations to police political advertising and has agreed to turn over to Congress copies of 3000 political adverts bought by Russian accounts during the US election.

Facebook has already admitted that Russian propagandists spent at least $100,000 on election adverts, enough to reach tens of millions of voters.

“Trump says Facebook is against him,” Zuckerberg wrote. “Liberals say we helped Trump. Both sides are upset about ideas and content they don’t like. That’s what running a platform for all ideas looks like.”

Earlier this week, it emerged that Barack Obama had berated Zuckerberg for not taking the issue of Russian “fake news” seriously.

It was also revealed that the company had detected suspicious activity linked to the US election on its network by hackers connected with Russian military intelligence as early as June 2016.

In May 2016, Zuckerberg came under fire after it emerged that Facebook was burying politically conservative news, and promoting stories that they deemed important.

Zuckerberg last month hired Hillary Clinton’s pollster, heightening speculation that the Facebook founder is planning to move into politics.

Amid a barrage of fake news, however, publishers on both sides of the Atlantic have been

reinvigorated by the globe-shaking news events of the election of Donald Trump and Brexit.

On Tuesday, The Washington Post, owned by Amazon founder Jeff Bexos, disclosed it had reached a digital subscriber milestone.

“Earlier this year, we crossed the 1 million mark for paid digital-only subscribers,” the Post’s publisher Fred Ryan revealed in an internal memo on Tuesday.

The 1 million figure puts the Post behind The Wall Street Journal, with 1.27m digital subscribers. The New York Times had 2.3m paid digital subscribers.