Mark Zuckerberg has hinted that Facebook could have helped prevent the Iraq war if it had existed at the time. In a speech delivered this Thursday, the Facebook CEO has also suggested that the debate over Iraq played an important role in the origin of Facebook. This is a much more optimistic account of the early days of the social network than what has been previously published. Facebook was launched after a young Zuckerberg built a website to test the attractiveness of college students without their consent. He then ended up being sued, accused of having stolen his ideas from a group of students. During the early days, he described his users as "idiots" for trusting him with their personal data. Discover more stories on Business Insider Spain . Facebook might have been able to help prevent the Iraq war if it had existed at the time, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg said in a speech in which he attempted to reconstruct the story of the social network's controversial origins.
a kinder story. In a speech Thursday at Georgetown University , the 34-year-old billionaire CEO gave a 45-minute talk laying out his stance on free speech, opposing calls for more control. strict moderation within Middle East Phone Number List the social network and criticized China's authoritarian censorship. But the beginning of his speech has also attracted attention, due to the way in which Zuckerberg described the beginnings of Facebook as an event influenced by the Iraq war . "When I was in college, our country had just gone to war in Iraq. The atmosphere on campus was one of distrust. We felt like we were acting without listening to many important opinions," he noted . "I remember feeling that if more people had a voice to share their experiences, maybe things would have been different.
Those early years shaped my belief that giving everyone a voice empowers the powerless and pushes society to be better over time". What Zuckerberg is suggesting is that if Facebook had existed in 2003, when the United States decided to invade Iraq, its open platform could have helped the debate be organized differently, producing a different result, and that according to the CEO of the social network It was decisive for the birth of Facebook a year later. Read more: Zuckerberg told his employees that he would have been fired several times already if it weren't for the fact that he has full control of Facebook This appears to be the first time Zuckerberg has spoken publicly about the Iraq War as an influence on his decision-making : a search of the Zuckerberg Archives, an academic repository that tries to preserve his public comments, turns up no record of it. although it is always possible that for a long time it has been a silent idea that has haunted the billionaire's thoughts.