Rep. Zack Fields, a Democrat legislator who represents downtown Anchorage, has written to the CEO of Facebook and blamed him for the increase of Covid-19 cases in Alaska because of blogs like Must Read Alaska’s Facebook account.
Must Read Alaska enjoys using Facebook and Twitter, and welcomes a robust community discussion from all points of view on many topics about Alaska.
Fields is the former communication director for the Alaska Democratic Party and works for the Alaska Laborers union as a field organizer at the same time he holds down a job as a legislator.
On Twitter, Fields summarized his letter, saying Facebook is the “primary vector of misinformation on COVID-19, and it’s killing Alaskans.” He linked stories from Must Read Alaska and the Alaska Watchman, with a strong implication that they should be censored from the platform. Lawmakers demanding that news organizations be censored are in violation of the U.S. Constitution’s First Amendment. Fields threaded that needle of government censorship, but not as carefully as he thinks and has left himself open for legal action.
Must Read Alaska earlier this year reported on Fields, unmasked, having a beer pong and leg wrestling contest on the Alaska Capitol campus in Juneau with a liberal blogger and some married women legislators, while everyday Alaskans were prohibited from entering the Capitol due to Covid.
Read: Two of three leg-wrestling legislators apologize for partying on Capitol campus
Some of his other proclivities in Juneau have gone unreported as of yet, but Fields has every reason to want Must Read Alaska to fail, based on what it has already reported about him and his extra curricular activities.
“I am writing to demand that you bear witness to the carnage of Covid-19 in Alaska, which is almost entirely the result of anti-vaccination conspiracy theories,” Fields wrote to Zuckerberg. “As the largest ‘media’ outlet in the state, you bear unique responsibility for these deaths.”
Fields continued, “To be sure, there are politicians who have put short-sighted political calculation ahead of public heath — but they only have an anti-public health base In pander to because of your digital network. Certainly, there are local bloggers that have spread misinformation — but their primary reach is through Facebook, not the blogs themselves.”
In fact, Must Read Alaska’s primary reach is through direct access to its website, not through Facebook, with over 56 million impressions through search engines and syndication partners.
“In short, you have provided the infrastructure to spread deadly misinformation with maximum efficiency, and rather than do anything meaningful to fix it your company has maintained algorithms that continue to prioritize inflammatory and false information,” Fields continued.
“As I wrote this letter, approximately 1,000 Alaskans are testing positive for Covid-I9 every day and every day more will die as our hospitals are packed far beyond their capacity to provide reasonable care,” Fields wrote.
“You are aware of this reality on a national level and have chosen to do nothing, because meaningfully changing Facebook’s algorithms would undercut profitability,” Fields continued.
“I want you to see the individual people in Alaska who are dying because they made the fatal mistake to participate in your company‘s network and trust the information they find there,” Fields wrote.
