In a Facebook video interview with company COO Sheryl Sandberg, Zuckerberg said that Facebook was a "new kind of platform" and therefore "not a traditional media company."
"It’s not a traditional technology company. It’s not a traditional media company," he said. "You know, we build technology and we feel responsible for how it’s used. We don’t write the news that people read on the platform, but at the same time we also know that we do a lot more than just distribute the news, and we’re an important part of the public discourse."
It is the first time Zuckerberg has described Facebook as a "media company," having previously rejected the label. When asked by a young man whether he planned on becoming a news editor, the CEO said that Facebook was a "tech company, not a media company."
Zuckerberg’s comments come amid rising concern of politically biased moderation of Facebook’s content, after the company last week announced plans to start marking "fake news" with warning labels, with the help of partisan fact checkers such as Snopes and Politifact.