Selena Gomez, one of the most influential stars on social media, went public Friday night (Sept. 18) with a private message she sent to Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg and Sheryl Sandberg. Gomez, who counts 193 million followers on Facebook-owned Instagram and more than 77 million on Facebook, posted the message on Instagram Stories, calling out the Facebook founder and CEO and Sandberg, chief operating officer, with a plea to start a dialogue on the hot button issues of misinformation and hate speech. “We have a serious problem. Facebook and Instagram are being used to spread hate, misinformation, racism, and bigotry,” she wrote, two days after a significant push by stars like Kim Kardashian, Jamie Foxx, Kerry Washington, Sacha Baron Cohen, Mark Ruffalo, Dwyane Wade Katy Perr...
Despite what Donald Trump or Mark Zuckerberg say, it’s pretty clear at this point that foreign interference on Facebook helped sway the 2016 presidential election. While Zuck has been slow to take responsibility or hold users on the platform accountable, Facebook has started initiating some changes to prevent further manipulation in 2020. Today, the company’s founder/CEO announced new steps Facebook and Instagram are taking to combat election tampering — including banning new political ads beginning one week before November 3rd. In his post announcing the changes, Zuckerberg explained barring ads beginning October 27th ensures Facebook has enough time to investigate any claims of misinformation. Trump has already been routinely criticized for pushing ads with false claims about his opponen...