Posted on 04/11/2018 7:27:10 AM PDT by Kaslin
Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) grilled Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg Tuesday about whether or not the social media platform was biased against conservatives. Zuckerberg acknowledged that Cruz raised a “fair concern” but insisted that Facebook was committed to being a “platform for all ideas.”
"There are a great many Americans who I think are deeply concerned that Facebook and other tech companies are engaged in a pervasive pattern of bias and political censorship," Cruz said.
He read off examples of Facebook suppressing conservative speech, starting with former Facebook employees admitting to suppressing conservative news in May of 2016. Cruz brought up Facebook shutting down a Chick-fil-A appreciation page and most recently censoring Trump supporters Diamond and Silk.
Ted Cruz to Zuckerberg: Is there Facebook political bias? (video)
"Senator, let me say a few things about this,” Zuckerberg replied. “First, I understand where that concern is coming from because Facebook and the tech industry are located in the Silicon Valley which is an extremely left-leaning place and this is actually a concern that I have and that I try to root out in the company — is making sure that we don't have any bias in the work that we do.”
He said that it was a "fair concern." Cruz then interrupted to ask if any pages from Planned Parenthood, Moveon.org, or Democratic candidates, had been taken down by Facebook.
Zuckerberg replied that he was "not specifically aware" of any of those pages being censored.
Cruz asked if Zuckerberg was aware of the political orientations of the 15,000 to 20,000 people Facebook has working on security and content review.
"No, Senator, we do not generally ask people about their political orientation when they are joining the company," Zuckerberg said.
Zuckerberg concluded his exchange with Cruz by insisting that Facebook is committed to a free exchange of ideas.
"I am very committed to making sure that Facebook is a platform for all ideas," he insisted. "That is a very important founding principle of what we do. We're proud of the discourse and the different ideas that people can share on the service. And that is something that, as long as I'm running the company, I'm going to be committed to making sure is the case."
You sound like you’re (maybe ?) a twelve year old.
So, yes....whatever.
Our back and forth, here, is over.
Take care, Theo.
FB one big happy liberal community
“Did the internet exist when these laws were written?”
Please tell me you’re not trying the equivalent of the old “semiautomatic weapons didn’t exist when the 2nd Amendment was written” argument.
“Lawsuits have already been filed against companies under the ADA, charging that they violate equal access.”
The ADA defines public accommodations differently than the Civil Rights Act does, so this isn’t relevant. If you want to argue that you can sue under the Civil Rights Act, you have to go based on the definition of terms in the Civil Rights Act, not the definition in some other law.
“Facebook, Twitter, Google, YouTube, etc., are the modern equivalent of railroads.”
Then file an anti-trust lawsuit and get them broken up. If you can’t make that case in court, then there really isn’t any basis for government regulation of these particular websites over any others.
I thought the evil, money grubbing, monopoly making, mind controlling, lawyered up conservatives are what are destroying America.
As do you!!!
You do, too!
So there’s that.
(I didn’t start the accusation b&f, btw...keep up)
Take care.
May Facebook Crash and Burn!!!!
Uh oh. Zuck left his talking points open on the table.
https://nypost.com/2018/04/11/zuckerberg-was-ready-to-clap-back-at-apple-on-capitol-hill/
More like Data’s evil twin, Lore.
Data is more the regular Joe type. You know, someone you could sit down and shoot the breeze over a beer or two.
“FB is a private entity. They can censor whom they will. Just like FR can censor as well. I wouldn’t suggest .gov telling FR how to operate their business.”
Facebook is not privately owned. It is publicly traded. FR is privately owned. Big difference.
Democrats feel entitled to use public funds (i.e. tax revenues) to fund their religious ideology and attack their political and ideological enemies. And they take a similar approach with every major institution: legislature (and free elections in general), judiciary, executive, law enforcement, military, intelligence, state department (foreign relations), education, media, religion, and corporate boardroom.
Half-a-billion per year to the largest murder-for-hire enterprise on the planet is just one example.
The founders believed in government-sanctioned LIMITED monopolies to “promote the progress of science and useful arts.” That’s what a patent is, essentially.
Facebook promotes itself as an open platform and uses APIs to integrate with many web services. For example, many websites allow you to log in using your Facebook account. With the encouragement of Facebook, businesses use Facebook data to screen job applicants. These things make Facebook akin to a communication service such as the telephone. Or even more so like a credit bureau.
Credit Bureaus are regulated. Banks are regulated. Publicly traded companies are regulated. Some of the non-discrimination laws are Constitutional based on equal protection. Companies must not falsely advertise to be open to everyone and then discriminate based on the ideology of its executives.
Keep in mind, there is not even a say given to shareholders which means shareholders are being defrauded by the CEO and board of executives. These executives are also failing to meet their fiduciary obligations by promoting their personal ideological and political agendas.
Facebook also forces users into perpetual contracts so that your information may be accessible even if you decide you want to close your account.
Facebook also enters into contracts with minors without parental consent or government oversight. Children who use Facebook are not safe from bullying (which has resulted in multiple child suicides), stalking by predators, harassment, invasion of privacy.
Facebook intentionally obscures its policies which is a type of bad faith in contract law. It uses deceptive practices. It fails to take reasonable precautions in protecting user data.
Facebook has given massive amounts of in-kind contributions to Democrats without proper disclosure.
Facebook sells advertising which targets the general public.
Facebook engages in interstate commerce and international trade.
Facebook should be heavily regulated.
Liberals have seized control of every major institution of power and robbed patriots of their rights, liberties, and the very nation itself. They have committed crimes against humanity by murdering babies and selling their body parts. They have forced an agenda of perversion in which perversion is promoted in compulsory education, and foster parent and child adoptive laws turn over vulnerable children to perverts.
Our whole nation is under attack with very powerful and destructive mind-control techniques and other means of coercive control. Wake up.
There is a cry to Heaven for JUSTICE. Don’t defend them. Fight them. Or at least stay out the way.
Private, as in not .gov. But, make them bake the cake is your pov I see.
Sue for fraud, but don't go around and tell a business who to not censor or who to serve.
Yup. I’m 12 years old. My parents registered a FR account for me 8 years before I was born.
I just wish you’d let go of your tiresome antipathy toward Ted Cruz. You’d be much better off if you’d recognize that he’s on our side, and speaks for a lot of principled Constitutional conservatives.
You sound like you need to let it go.
You first posted to me. I’d appreciate it if you’d take your accusations elsewhere and not post to me, again.
I stand by my original comment about my Senator cRuz.
Are you in Texas?
I can have any opinion I choose, regarding my Senator.
Again...I have volunteered for him, fund raised for him...and have met him in person.
Have you done any of the above?
You’d ‘be much better off’ (quoting you), if you realized ‘principled, Constitutional conservatives’ don’t meet and greet ILLEGALS at the border and hand them teddy bears and soccer balls. Nor do Constitutional Conservatives blame BLM riots on Trump. Amazing to see supporters of that nonsense, here.
Take a(nother) break and brush up.
Your ongoing vitriol toward Cruz is tiring. I’ll continue to ask FReepers to stop trashing him whenever I see him being trashed by FReepers. He’s on our side. He speaks for millions of principled Constitutional conservatives.
Ha! Stay happy in your delusions.
Again...stop posting to me. I’ve asked nicely, previously.
Stop harassing me, accusing me of being deluded. Indeed, stop posting to me entirely. I’ve asked nicely.
And please stop smearing good conservative representatives.
“Private, as in not .gov. But, make them bake the cake is your pov I see. Sue for fraud, but don’t go around and tell a business who to not censor or who to serve.”
I mean this in the nicest possible way, but something is truly very wrong with your mind. You come to a conservative forum and demonstrate you are hellbent on defending the pro-abortion, pro-sodomy liberals who run Facebook and accuse others of doing what you and they are doing.
How can you have two functioning brain cells and accuse me of siding with people who are forcing mom and pop bakery owners to make custom designs showing support for homosexual marriage? To accuse me of something like that while you are siding with tyrants who are doing EXACTLY what you accuse me of shows your complete and total lack of understanding of the issue.
When a person has something explained clearly to them and they persist in living in an alternative reality, it causes one to wonder if that person is a fraud or deranged.
When a company goes public, they make shares in the company available to the public for purchase. This means it is PUBLICLY owned (more commonly called publicly traded in order to differentiate from government owned), not privately owned.
Further, Facebook does not own the speech of those who use its forum.
When companies take advantage of government-regulated securities in order to have easy access to money in places like your and my retirement accounts, then it is no longer merely the free speech of the CEO (even if he owns 25%) or the executives who run it.
I realize you consider freedom of speech to be important, but you are applying a knee-jerk reaction to a situation about which you are in DESPERATE need of an education. But instead you are shouting from the rooftops your erroneous position.
It’s like you’ve made a mistake in math class, the teacher has explained your mistake, but you insist on repeating it and arguing over it. You are simply wrong about how the concept of freedom of speech should be applied to publicly traded entities. And by the way, it is not about me being the supposed teacher and you being the student in this scenario. It is about what the facts of the matter are. And you have them wrong.
If the executives who run Facebook want to control and limit legal speech in order to advance their own personal agendas, they need to buy the company and take it private. And they need to give full disclosure.
Your supposed remedy to their illegal activity is no remedy at all. Your idea to sue a multi-billion-dollar, multi-national corporation when the ones running it infringe on the free speech of individuals and small businesses and groups is ludicrous. It shows you have zero experience doing so.
A company like Facebook would have a team of lawyers running you through the court system and making you hate life itself. It takes the power of the government to regulate and enforce laws upon a behemoth such as this, which quite frankly should not be allowed to amass so much power in the first place.
If you go back and look at the writings of the founders, it is such unchecked power that they were concerned about. Free speech is not about some phrase you can quote rotely with no engagement in the practical application of it.
If you had a wild, unruly mob with guns gathering at a public park and disarming anyone there who was not part of their group, your position would be akin to saying the mob is just exercising their rights to own guns and have the freedom to assemble. Your remedy is like saying the families who are disarmed and harassed can go find another park to take their families and have their picnics.
No. That’s not how freedoms and rights work. The freedoms and rights of some do not negate the freedom and rights of others.
Facebook owners and executives have the right to exercise free speech. So does the public that they use for access to capital and to whom they market their goods and services. The free speech of the Facebook executives is not the freedom to rob others of their freedom of speech.
Facebook promoted its services to the general public with the premise and good faith understanding that it was an open forum to share links, thoughts, photos, videos, personal information like birth dates and special occasions being celebrated and schools attended. Facebook, under this premise, amassed billions in marketing revenue. Now that they have received good and valuable consideration from the participants, they have a legal and moral duty to fulfill their contractual agreements. Instead the ones running it have decided to wield their unchecked power to censor the free speech of conservatives and give in-kind contributions to liberal politicians. Facebook needs regulation. So does YouTube and other social media platforms that are publicly traded.
I don’t mean to sound harsh or hateful, but it is really annoying to engage in a conversation with someone on a conservative forum and be accused of supporting the homosexual agenda because I believe Facebook should be regulated. It is even more annoying when the person stubbornly refuses to consider the facts.
When you have two billion users you are not baking cakes in a small town.
When you have two billion users and you censor speech you are a world-wide menace.
When you have two billion users and sell their private data to the highest bidder you are evil and must be destroyed.
There is no compromise to be had with Facebook.
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