MSNBC’s Joe Scarborough said on Wednesday that Facebook is not just passively allowing extremism to flourish on the platform, but actively “promoting” it.
“I’ve seen a lot of insincere statements put out. Gonna say Mark Zuckerberg talking about how deeply saddened he was by the things he’s seen the president say is near that top of it considering that he makes billions of dollars of off spreading lies and letting people spread lies — hateful lies,” said the former GOP representative, citing the Facebook founder’s oft-criticized decision to leave misleading or violent posts untouched.
He went on to highlight a “right-wing extremist group” that targets law enforcement, zeroing in on the arrest of Steven Carillo, an accused extremist charged with killing of a federal officer after allegedly writing in a Facebook group that the unrest over the killing of George Floyd was “on our coast now, this needs to be nationwide” and “a great opportunity.”
“Mark Zuckerberg is promoting the extremism because his site — the Zuckerberg site — is actually set up, like ad promotions, that actually push people towards extremist sites that kill federal officers! And Mark Zuckerberg becomes a billionaire how many times over because he’s pushing people toward extremist sites that gun down and murder federal officials?” he raged.
Last week, Zuckerberg and his wife Priscilla Chan said they were “disgusted” by Trump’s divisive rhetoric when addressing the civil arrest following Floyd’s death while in police custody. However, Facebook has continued its laissez-faire policy when it comes to moderating comments made by the president.
Watch Scarborough’s fiery monologue in its entirety, above.