Why Mark Zuckerberg won't be held accountable

Throughout thousands of pages of leaked Facebook documents, there's an uncomfortable refrain echoing from the company's own employees: Something must be done.

The documents make clear that senior leadership, including CEO Mark Zuckerberg, were made aware of the potential for real-world harms from its various platforms — amplifying hate speech, encouraging eating disorders in teens, inciting violence — and did nothing about it.

There's little, if anything, in the revelations that looks good for Zuckerberg, the 37-year-old founder who built Facebook from a dorm room project into a nearly trillion-dollar company on the mantra "move fast and break things." Outraged activists, pundits and lawmakers are demanding Zuckerberg take responsibility — the fish rots from the head down, after all. But holding Zuckerberg accountable is much easier said than done.