Zuckerberg, inflaming debate, asserts Facebook stands for free expression

WASHINGTON — Mark Zuckerberg gave a full-throated defense of Facebook as a champion of free expression, fighting the idea that the social network needs to be an arbiter of speech as it has faced blowback for leaving up false political ads going into the 2020 presidential election.

In a winding, 35-minute speech Thursday at Georgetown University’s Gaston Hall — where presidents and foreign heads of state have delivered addresses — the Facebook chief executive said the social network had been founded to give people a voice and bring them together and that critics who had assailed the company for doing so were setting a dangerous example.

To make his case, Zuckerberg invoked Frederick Douglass, Martin Luther King Jr., the Vietnam War and the First Amendment. He contrasted Facebook’s position with that of China, where Beijing controls and censors speech and where he tried unsuccessfully for years to enter to turbocharge his company’s business.

“People having the power to express themselves at scale is a new kind of force in the world — a Fifth Estate alongside the other power structures of society,” Zuckerberg, 35, said.

He added that despite the messiness of free speech, “the long journey towards greater progress requires confronting ideas that challenge us. I’m here today because I believe we must continue to stand for free expression.”

The address by the tech billionaire was an unusually public doubling down on free expression online as debate over that stance has ramped up. It was a sign that Zuckerberg was going on the offense against critics who have accused the Menlo Park company of being an amplifier of disinformation, hate speech and violent content.

Zuckerberg made his stand as Facebook has grappled with a firestorm over political speech...