5/22/22, 6:36 PM Mark Zuckerberg on Facebook’s future, fake news, and Russian mischief - Vox way to track, or even understand, all that is happening on Facebook at any given time. Problems that look small in the moment — like organized disinformation campaigns mounted by Russia — reveal themselves, in retrospect, to be massive, possibly even world-changing, events. Photo illustration by Javier Zarracina/Vox; Jonathan Nackstrand/AFP/Getty Images I spoke with Zuckerberg on Friday about the state of his company, the implications of its global influence, and how he sees the problems ahead of him. “I think we will dig through this hole, but it will take a few years,” Zuckerberg 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.” But what happens then? What has this past year meant for Facebook’s future? In a 2017 manifesto, Zuckerberg argued that Facebook would help humanity takes its “next step” by becoming “the social infrastructure” for a truly global community. Remarkably, Facebook’s scale makes this a plausible vision. But it comes with a dark side: Has Facebook become too big to manage, and too dangerous when it fails? Should the most important social infrastructure of the global community be managed by a single company headquartered in Northern California? And does Zuckerberg’s optimism about human nature and the benefits of a connected world make it harder for him to see the harm Facebook can cause? The full conversation with Zuckerberg can be heard on my podcast, The Ezra Klein Show. A transcript, lightly edited for length and clarity, follows. https://www.vox.com/2018/4/2/17185052/mark-zuckerberg-facebook-interview-fake-news-bots-cambridge 2/16