Inside Facebook's Political Ad Mess
Slate News
Slate Podcasts
4.5 • 6K Ratings
🗓️ 25 October 2019
⏱️ 18 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Over the last week, Facebook and Mark Zuckerberg have been under fire for declining to fact-check political ads. But a former insider says this is the wrong debate to be having—and it misses a more fundamental problem: Facebook’s business model itself.
Guests: Yael Eisenstat, former head of global elections integrity operations at Facebook and Charlie Warzel, an opinion writer at the New York Times.
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Transcript
Click on a timestamp to play from that location
| 0:00.0 | Hi, I'm Lizzie O'Leary, and if you're wondering why you're hearing my voice and not Mary Harris's, it's because we're bringing you a new show. |
| 0:07.8 | It's called What Next TBD, and it's part of the What Next family, focused on tech, power, and the future. |
| 0:14.4 | So you'll hear me every Friday morning in your What Next feed, and you'll still get regular What Next Monday through Thursday. |
| 0:20.7 | Plus, those great impeachment roundup shows are now on Friday afternoons. |
| 0:24.2 | Hope you like it. |
| 0:29.7 | On Wednesday of this week, Mark Zuckerberg went up to Capitol Hill. |
| 0:33.8 | Thank you. Chairwoman Waters, Ranking Member McHenry and members of the committee. |
| 0:39.2 | Thank you for the opportunity to testify today. |
| 0:42.2 | In theory, he was there to testify about Facebook's cryptocurrency, Libra. |
| 0:46.6 | In practice, he was there to be a pinata for members of Congress. |
| 0:53.4 | Mr. Zuckerberg, I want to get through a number of questions. |
| 0:57.7 | Diverse asset management, fair housing issues, diversity and inclusion in privacy and security. |
| 1:05.0 | In particular, lawmakers seem to want to focus on Facebook's policy of not fact-checking political |
| 1:10.5 | ads. You announced recently that the's policy of not fact-checking political ads. |
| 1:11.7 | You announced recently that the official policy of Facebook now allows politicians to pay to spread |
| 1:17.0 | disinformation in 2020 elections and in the future. So I just want to know how far I can push this. |
| 1:24.8 | You plan on doing no fact-checking on political ads. |
| 1:30.2 | Chairwoman, our policy is that we do not fact-check politicians' speech. |
| 1:37.0 | Zuckerberg's last time in front of Congress was in the spring of 2018. |
| 1:41.3 | Yael Eisenstadt remembers that day perfectly. |
| 1:44.0 | The last time he testified was the day |
| 1:45.6 | they made the job offer to me. In fact, they actually call me with the final offer one minute |
... |
Please login to see the full transcript.
Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from Slate Podcasts, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.
Generated transcripts are the property of Slate Podcasts and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.
Copyright © Tapesearch 2026.