On Tuesday, Texas Senator Ted Cruz stepped up. He pointed out that the claims that Facebook is biased politically could be substantiated. Cruz started things off by asking if Facebook considered itself a neutral public forum. He then moved on to many instances when Facebook showed hostility toward conservatives. He asked pressing questions about the 15,000 to 20,000 people working on security and content review for Facebook. Cruz also asked whether or not Facebook was engaged in censorship.
To his credit, Zuck did admit that the question is fair, with Facebook being located in the far left mecca of Silicon Valley.
Watch the video - Ted Cruz takes on Mark Zuckerberg
https://youtu.be/kXtIgQPChOE
The transcript, per The Daily Wire:
Cruz: Let me ask the question again. Does Facebook consider itself to be a neutral public forum, and representatives of your company has given conflicting answers on this. Are you a First Amendment speaker expressing your views, or are you a neutral public forum allowing everyone to speak?
Zuckerberg: Senator, here’s how we think about this: I don’t believe that — there’s certain content that clearly we do not allow: hate speech, terrorist content, nudity, anything that makes people feel unsafe in the community. From that perspective, that’s why we generally try to refer to what we do as a platform for all ideas.
Cruz: Let me try because the time is constrained. It’s just a simple question. The predicate for section 230 immunity under the CDA is that you are a neutral public forum. Do you consider yourself a neutral public forum or are you engaged in political speech, which is your right under the First Amendment?
Zuckerberg: Well, Senator, our goal is certainly not to engage in political speech; I’m not that familiar with the specific legal language of the law that you speak to, so I would need to follow up with you on that. I’m just trying to lay out how broadly I think about this.
Cruz: Well, Mr. Zuckerberg, I would say 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. There have been numerous instances with Facebook; in May of 2016, Gizmodo reported that Facebook had purposefully and routinely suppressed conservative stories from trending news, including stories about CPAC, including stories about Mitt Romney, including stories about the Lois Lerner/IRS scandal, including stories about Glenn Beck. In addition to that, Facebook has initially shut down the Chick-Fil-A Appreciation Day page, has blocked a post of a Fox News reporter, has blocked over two dozen Catholic pages, and most recently blocked Trump supporters Diamond and Silk’s page with 1.2 million Facebook followers after determining their content and brand were “unsafe to the community.” To a great many Americans that appears to be a pervasive pattern of political bias. Do you agree with that assessment?
Zuckerberg: Senator, let me say a few things about this. First: I understand where that concern is coming from; as 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, 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, and I think that it is a fair concern that people would wonder about it.
Cruz: Let me ask you this question: Are you aware of any ad or page that has been taken down from Planned Parenthood?
Zuckerberg: Senator, I’m not, but let me just finish.
Cruz: How about MoveOn.org?
Zuckerberg: Sorry?
Cruz: How about MoveOn.org?
Zuckerberg: I’m not specifically aware of those.
Cruz: How about any Democratic candidate for office?
Zuckerberg: I’m not specifically aware, I’m not sure.
Cruz: In your testimony you say that you have fifteen to twenty-thousand people working on security and content review. Do you know the political orientation of those fifteen to twenty-thousand people engaged in content review?
Zuckerberg: No, Senator, we do not generally ask people their political orientation when joining the company.
Cruz: So as CEO, have you ever made hiring or firing decisions based on political positions or what candidates they support?
Zuckerberg: No.
Cruz: Why was Palmer Luckey fired?
Zuckerberg: That is a specific personnel matter that seems like it would be inappropriate to speak to here.
Cruz: You just made a specific representation that you didn’t make decisions based on political views. Was that accurate?
Zuckerberg: Well, I can commit that that was not because of a political view.
Cruz: Do you know of those fifteen to twenty-thousand people engaged in content review, how may if any, have ever supported financially a Republican candidate for office?
Zuckerberg: Senator, I do not know that.
Cruz: Your testimony says, “It is not enough that we just connect people, we have to make sure those connections are positive.” It says, “We have to make sure that people aren’t using their voice to hurt people or spread misinformation. We have a responsibility not just to build tools, to make sure those tools are used for good.” Mr. Zuckerberg, do you feel it’s your responsibility to assess users, whether they are “good and positive” connections or ones that those fifteen to twenty-thousand people deem “unacceptable” or “deplorable"?
Zuckerberg: Senator, you’re asking about me personally? Senator, I think there are a number of things that we would all agree are clearly bad: foreign interference in our elections; terrorism; self-harm, those are things—
Cruz: I’m talking about censorship.
Zuckerberg: Oh, well, I think that you would probably agree that we should remove terrorist propaganda from the service. So, that, I agree, I think is clearly bad activity that we want to get down, and we’re generally proud of how we do with that. Now what I can say, and I do want to get this in before the end here, is that I am very committed to making sure that Facebook is a platform for all ideas. That is a very important founding principle of what we do, and 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.
Credit where it's due. Zuckerberg took the questions from Cruz and did make somewhat of an attempt to answer the questions. Whether or not he answered them truthfully is up for debate.
Some very interesting dialog today and it will be interesting to see where we go from here as far as Facebook being regulated.
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