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Senator Marsha Blackburn accused Facebook founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg of prioritizing “profit over principle” by stifling dissenters in foreign countries when the government calls for it.
When asked if Facebook has shut down users who spoke out against their government, Zuckerberg repeatedly replied, “We try to obey all local laws.”
Noting that Facebook has 60 million users in Communist Vietnam, Blackburn, R-Tennessee, asked Zuckerberg if Facebook had shut down a Vietnamese dissident after criticizing the government’s land policy.
“I don’t know all the details about it, but I think maybe we did,” Zuckerberg said. “In general, we try to follow the local laws of different countries,”
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“You stopped it for three months,” Blackburn said.
Blackburn pointed out that Facebook also took photos of the Prophet Muhammad after the Turkish government ordered him to do so, in order to avoid risking losing 40 million users in the country. In Russia, the Tennessee Republican said Facebook had agreed to delete posts in favor of Russian dissident Alexei Navalny.
“Do you think it’s Facebook’s job to comply with state-sponsored censorship so that it can continue to operate, do business, and sell ads in this country?” Blackburn asked Zuckerberg.
“In general, we try to follow the laws of each country where we operate and do business,” repeated the CEO.
“I think you’ve prioritized profit over principle,” Blackburn said.
She also pledged that the section 230 reforms “would remove that liability protection that you have turned into an opaque wall.”
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Section 230 has played a central role in today’s social media boom by enabling internet service providers and Twitter, Facebook, YouTube and others to be immune from liability for posted content on their platforms by third parties in most cases.
Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act states that “No provider or user of an interactive computing service shall be treated as the publisher or speaker of any information provided by another information content provider.”
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Blackburn said the Online Freedom and Diversity of Views Act was ready for the markup and would limit some of those protections.
Zuckerberg and Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey came under fire from Republicans on Tuesday on conservative censorship charges. Blackburn asked why she was “slapped” with an election flag sticker for criticizing the Trump Accountability Project.
“The Trump Accountability Project exists to blacklist Americans who have served in the Trump administration and prevent them from obtaining future employment,” said Blackburn. “In Communist China, in Putin’s Russia, in totalitarian states, the government will regularly publish a blacklist of their enemies.
Zuckerberg replied: “I generally agree that people should not be discriminated against because of their political beliefs.”
In a post on Facebook, I wrote and I quote, ‘The Trump Accountability Project is the epitome of cancellation culture, “said Blackburn.” Our nation has long benefited from vigorous political debate … Nothing was said about the election or the results, directly or indirectly, but somehow I was slapped with your elections flag sticker “
The Trump Accountability Project aimed to “ensure that members of the Trump administration charged with loosening the guardrails of our democracy are not rewarded with book offers, television contracts or six-figure salaries in the industry. private based on this experience. “
The project was abruptly stopped last week. “In the spirit of the president-elect’s call to build a more united country, this project will no longer be active,” a statement from the project said.
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