Facebook executive says society to blame for misinformation, not social media

Facebook executive Andrew Bosworth wrote of Facebook's drive to connect people, "Maybe it costs a life by exposing someone to bullies." Thursday, he renounced the statements.CHRISTIAN CHARISIUS/GETTY IMAGES

Facebook executive Andrew Bosworth is pictured. (CHRISTIAN CHARISIUS/GETTY IMAGES)

SRDTF News
UPDATED 1:55 PM PT – Monday, December 13, 2021

A Facebook executive blamed society and not social media for political and COVID-19 misinformation. In an interview on Sunday, Andrew Bosworth deflected the blame for the spread of misinformation on social media while asserting people are exposed to misinformation because they want to be.

When asked if vaccine hesitancy would be the same with or without social media, Bosworth said people are going to believe whatever they want regardless of what they are seeing on social media.

”The individual humans are the ones who choose to believe or not believe a thing, they’re the ones who choose to share or not share something,” claimed the Facebook executive. “…Our ability to know what is misinformation is in itself in question, I think is reasonably so. I’m very uncomfortable with the idea that we possess enough fundamental rightness, even in our most scientific centers of study, to exercise that kind of power on a citizen, another human being.”



His remarks came after the Biden administration blamed Facebook in July for the spread of COVID-19 misinformation.

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