And if you thought the recent slate of Donald Trump vs. Everyone Else in the Republican Presidential Candidate Debates was good, well, you may be in for a bigger treat.
On Friday, Milo Yiannopolous, tech editor with conservative news site Breitbart, went on YouTube to challenge Facebook Chief Executive Mark Zuckerberg to a debate about how the social-media giant goes about choosing its trending topics, and whether it suppresses stories with a conservative slant. Facebook has come under fire this week following reports from Gizmodo that cited unnamed Facebook contractors saying they were “routinely” directed to play down, or even not post, news stories with conservative points of view in the site’s Trending Topics feed.
Yiannopolous, who is known as an outspoken gay conservative, said in his YouTube video that he wants to challenge Zuckerberg to a Facebook Live debate on the matter that would be streamed directly over Facebook’s site. “It’s time for Mark Zuckerberg to be honest about it, and that’s why we’re challenging him today.”
Among the topics Yiannopolous brought up as he sees as being censored on Facebook are the name of his current speaking tour and “why ordinary Germans aren’t allowed to express concern about the changes that are happening to their communities as the result of mass Muslim immigration.”
Yiannopolous’ challenge came a day after Zuckerberg said in a Facebook post that he would invite leading conservatives “and people from across the political spectrum” to talk about the likelihood that Facebook has purposefully suppressed conservative news stories. Zuckerberg denied the allegations.
“We have found no evidence that this report is true,” Zuckerberg said. “If we find anything against our principles, you have my commitment that we will take additional steps to address it.”
Yiannopolous, who had his “verified” status at microblogger Twitter revoked earlier this year for violating Twitter’s rules on hate speech and harassment, appealed to Zuckerberg to prove he stands by his words and show that Facebook is different from its social-media rival.
“What’s it to be, Mark? Are you going to go the way of Twitter, with a cratering stock price, shattered user trust, one of the angriest user bases in all of technology. Or are you going to reaffirm your commitment to free speech, to free intellectual inquiry, to the right of your users to express themselves how they please and to have whatever political opinions they want, whether or not you agree with them?”
We’ve had some great debates in American history. Lincoln-Douglas. Kennedy-Nixon. Bush-Clinton-Perot. It’s time to add Yiannopolous-Zuckerberg to the list.
Photo: Mark Zuckerberg delivers the keynote address at Facebook’s F8 Developers Conference on April 12 in San Francisco, Calif. (Karl Mondon/Bay Area News Group)
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