SAN FRANCISCO: Facebook warned on Monday that it could offer no assurance that social media was on balance good for democracy, but the company said it was trying what it could to stop alleged meddling in elections by Russia or anyone else.
The sharing of false or misleading headlines on social media has become a global issue, after accusations that Russia tried to influence votes in the US, Britain and France. Moscow denies the allegations.
Facebook, the largest social network with more than 2 billion users, addressed social media’s role in democracy in blog posts from a Harvard University professor, Cass Sunstein, and from an employee working on the subject.
“I wish I could guarantee that the positives are destined to outweigh the negatives, but I can’t,” Samidh Chakrabarti, a Facebook product manager, wrote in his post.
Facebook, he added, has a “moral duty to understand how these technologies are being used and what can be done to make communities like Facebook as representative, civil and trustworthy as possible.”
Contrite Facebook executives were already fanning out across Europe this week to address the company’s slow response to abuses on its platform, such as hate speech and foreign influence campaigns.
US lawmakers have held hearings on the role of social media in elections, and this month Facebook widened an investigation into the run-up to Britain’s 2016 referendum on EU membership.
Chakrabarti expressed Facebook’s regrets about the 2016 US elections, when according to the company Russian agents created 80,000 posts that reached around 126 million people over two years.
The company should have done better, he wrote, and he said Facebook was making up for lost time by disabling suspect accounts, making election ads visible beyond the targeted audience and requiring those running election ads to confirm their identities.
Twitter and Alphabet’s Google and YouTube have announced similar attempts at self-regulation.
Chakrabarti said Facebook had helped democracy in ways, such as getting more Americans to register to vote.
Sunstein, a law professor and Facebook consultant who also worked in the administration of former US President Barack Obama, said in a blog post that social media was a work in progress and that companies would need to experiment with changes to improve.
Another test of social media’s role in elections lies ahead in March, when Italy votes in a national election already marked by claims of fake news spreading on Facebook.
Facebook says no assurance social media is good for democracy
Facebook says no assurance social media is good for democracy
Book by jailed Palestinian political leader Marwan Barghouti set for November release
- Prison letters, photographs and other documents to feature in the book
DUBAI: A new book by jailed Palestinian political leader Marwan Barghouti is set for publication in November, with Penguin confirmed as the publisher, The Guardian reported.
Titled “Unbroken: In Pursuit of Freedom for Palestine,” the book brings together a selection of Barghouti’s writings, including prison letters, interviews, public statements, conversations with public figures, and other documents and photographs.
It also features excerpts from his book “1,000 Days in Solitary Confinement,” which has so far only been published in Arabic.
Fadwa Barghouti, who wrote the introduction to the book, said she hoped it would allow the world to hear her husband “in his own voice, not through the noise surrounding him.”
She said in a statement: “This book finally makes that possible — and I hope it helps people understand who Marwan Barghouti truly is, and how he embodies the Palestinian struggle for freedom and dignity.”
Barghouti, who has spent over two decades in Israeli prison, is a member of the Fatah party. He has long advocated a two-state solution and is widely regarded as a powerful and unifying voice for Palestinians, with many supporters describing him as “Palestine’s Mandela.”
His detention has prompted repeated international advocacy efforts over the years.
In December 2025, an open letter calling for his release was signed by hundreds of celebrities, including Margaret Atwood, Philip Pullman, Zadie Smith and Annie Ernaux; actors Sir Ian McKellen, Benedict Cumberbatch, Tilda Swinton, Josh O’Connor, Mark Ruffalo and Stephen Fry; and musicians Sting, Paul Simon, Brian Eno and Annie Lennox.
In November 2025, his family and several UK-based human rights advocates ran a campaign that included demonstrations and public art installations in Palestine and London.
Barghouti has been jailed by Israel since 2004, having been handed five life sentences plus 40 years for his role during the second Palestinian uprising. He has spent significant time in solitary confinement, has been denied visits by his family for three years, and has been denied access to the International Committee of the Red Cross.
His name was on a list of prisoners to be exchanged for Israeli captives in October 2025, but Israel declined to release him.
