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Indonesia is threatening to block Facebook over fake news

"If I have to shut them down, then I will do it."
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The Indonesian government has threatened to block Facebook if they find evidence the social network is harvesting citizens’ data.

Communications Minister Rudiantara told Bloomberg he was willing to cut off access to Facebook, which boasts 115 million users in Indonesia.

"If I have to shut them down, then I will do it," Rudiantara said, warning that the company must address its fake news problem ahead of next month’s national election.

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Facebook has struggled with the fallout from the Cambridge Analytica controversy, as well as criticisms of the platform being used to orchestrate disinformation campaigns and spread hate speech and incitements to violence.

CEO Mark Zuckerberg told Vox Monday that the problems will take a long time to fix.

“I think we will dig through this hole, but it will take a few years,” he said. “I wish I could solve all these issues in three months or six months, but I just think the reality is that solving some of these questions is just going to take a longer period of time.”

Facebook recently faced stinging criticism from the U.N. in relation to Myanmar, where investigators said the company had “substantially contributed to the level of acrimony and dissension and conflict.”

Zuckerberg admitted to Vox that people are using Facebook “to incite real-world harm,” saying it's an issue the company is “paying a lot of attention to.”

Facebook wants to “make sure that all of the tools we’re bringing to bear on eliminating hate speech, inciting violence, and basically protecting the integrity of civil discussions that we’re doing in places like Myanmar,” he said.

Facebook’s size — it has more than 2 billion regular users — means it now acts more like a government than a traditional company, but without democratic checks and balances such as regular public votes to decide who is in charge.

READ: Facebook is more powerful in Washington than you realize

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Zuckerberg says he wants to build a company based on the needs of the community rather than the short-term needs of shareholders — a position that has become tougher in recent weeks after $100 billion was wiped off the company’s valuation.

One of the main challenges Facebook faces is accountability and deciding what content should and shouldn’t be allowed.

One solution, Zuckerberg says, is to create a social media Supreme Court.

“Over the long term, what I’d really like to get to is an independent appeal. So maybe folks at Facebook make the first decision based on the community standards that are outlined, and then people can get a second opinion. You can imagine some sort of structure, almost like a Supreme Court, that is made up of independent folks who don’t work for Facebook, who ultimately make the final judgment call on what should be acceptable speech in a community that reflects the social norms and values of people all around the world.”

Zuckerberg has already said that more regulation of social media is inevitable, and that he simply doesn’t want the responsibility of deciding what should and shouldn’t be allowed on his platform.

There are no details yet of how Zuckerberg’s Supreme Court might work. And not everyone finds the idea of Facebook developing a system of world governance appealing.

Cover image: Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg delivers the keynote address at Facebook's F8 Developer Conference on April 18, 2017 at McEnery Convention Center in San Jose, California. (Justin Sullivan/Getty Images)