'Iraq War did not inspire Facebook', says CEO's classmate from Havard

Mark Zuckerberg's classmate called him out for making a statement that was 'nowhere near the truth' on October 22, during his speech about freedom of expression at Georgetown University. The founder of the social media giant said the early version of Facebook was inspired after hearing a lot of important perspectives about the origin of the Iraq War, due to the debates that took place on the Harvard campus back in 2003. However, that may not be the case according to most of the early users of the website. 

Ruben Gallego, an Iraq War Veteran and also the classmate of Mark Zuckerberg claims that he remembers the debates that happened on the campus but Facebook's early version, which was only available for the university students, at the time was just designed to be a “cleaner” version of MySpace. This statement completely contradicts Zuckerberg's claims Facebook being inspired by his early years which made him want to create a space for people to have a voice to share experiences.

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'That's not what it was'

The claims of Facebook CEO shifting its history in order to impress the Republicans who believe social networks stifle conservative speech, as well as to market himself as part of liberal resistance. Another early user from 2005 broke down the earliest features which were not about free speech 

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Zuckerberg defends 'free speech'

Facebook says it won't remove 'newsworthy' content that goes against its community standards. Zuckerberg has defended Facebook's refusal to take down content it considers newsworthy “even if it goes against our standards”. Technology companies like Facebook, Google, Twitter are all reportedly trying to be in charge of internet content but at the same time, they are also avoiding infringing on the First Amendment rights. This has swung recently toward restricting hateful speech that could spawn violence. The shift follows mass shootings in which the suspects have posted racist screeds online or otherwise expressed hateful views or streamed images of attacks. However, Zuckerberg has also compared the social media's capability to start a dialogue with the 'fourth estate' which is referred to as the media.

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(With inputs from agencies)