Facebook and Twitter CEOs Brag to Senate on Effectiveness of Censorship
Nov. 18, 2020 (EIRNS)—In testimony yesterday before the Senate Judiciary Committee, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg and Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey, bragged about how effective they had been this year in censoring “misleading” posts and “conspiracy theories,” while “amplifying credible information” about voting, National Public Radio reported today. So, censorship is a good thing. And, they boasted, they are so responsible that they have continued this activity in the days after the election, too, as votes were still being counted and President Donald Trump and his supporters questioned them. Dorsey bragged that Twitter had flagged 300,000 tweets between Oct. 27 and Nov. 11, for “disputed and potentially misleading” information about the election.
“All taken together, I think that we really went quite far in terms of helping to distribute reliable and accurate information about what was going on during this election,” Zuckerberg boasted. While Dorsey confessed that it was a mistake for Twitter to block users from sharing the New York Post’s article about Hunter Biden, he insisted that his backtracking on the initial censorship—not entirely true—shows how open he is to criticism and willing to change—transparently!!
Some Democrats, such as Connecticut Sen. Richard Blumenthal, demanded more censorship—to eliminate “baseless” claims of vote fraud by President Trump and his allies along with their “false claims of victory.” He complained that Zuckerberg and Dorsey have really only taken “baby steps” in clamping down on “misinformation,” adding that he was worried that “both of your companies are, in fact, backsliding or retrenching—that you are failing to take action against dangerous disinformation, exactly the same kind of voter suppression tactics that existed in the last election.”
Blumenthal pointed to the importance of the Jan. 5 runoff election in Georgia that will determine whether the Republicans will control the Senate. Not to worry, said Zuckerberg. Facebook is taking a “similar approach” to Georgia as it did with the presidential election. In fact, according to Breitbart, the Mark Zuckerberg-funded Center for Technology and Civic Life announced on Nov. 17 that it will provide additional “safe elections” grants to county election departments in Georgia in advance of the Jan. 5, 2021 runoff election. Safe for whom?
