Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D., N.Y.) on Saturday reiterated past criticism of Facebook, despite paying the social-media giant hundreds of thousands of dollars for her reelection campaign.
Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez accuses Mark Zuckerberg and Facebook of 'partial responsiblity' for the US Capitol insurrection. Ever the absolute queen of congressional hearings, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez came for Mark Zuckerberg with absolute fire. Earlier this week, she tweeted to ask for her followers' suggestions on what to ask. She even opened her DMs, despite the consequences we can all but imagine. Ocasio-Cortez was likely referencing statements that Zuckerberg made earlier this month when he delivered an address at Georgetown University on October 17. At that event, the billionaire.
After winning a long shot 2018 primary, Ocasio-Cortez has been hailed in the press for her social-media savvy. On Saturday, she lamented the outsized role tech companies play in politics.
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'I don't know about you, but I don't want Mark Zuckerberg making decisions over my life,' Ocasio-Cortez said.
Ocasio-Cortez was speaking at a rally in Queens, New York, to publicly endorse Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Bernie Sanders (I., Vt.).
'We need to build a mass movement in America centered on the working class, the poor, the middle class, one that is actively anti-racist, that is rooted in principles of universality,' Ocasio-Cortez said. 'The future and our future is in a public system and it's publicly owned systems because we need to take power over our lives again.'
The Ocasio-Cortez campaign continues to be a major player in social media, according to its third quarter FEC filing. She spent at least $425,000 on advertising between June 28 and Sept. 23.
This isn't the first time Ocasio-Cortez's campaign has poured massive amounts of cash into increasing her Facebook visibility. During the second quarter, she spent more than $250,000 on Facebook advertising. This spending occurred simultaneously with Ocasio-Cortez telling a Yahoo News podcast in April she was quitting her own personal use of Facebook and scaling back social-media use in general, saying it's a 'public health risk' because it can lead to 'increased isolation, depression, anxiety, addiction, escapism.' She also said in March that society 'has a Facebook problem.'
The Washington Free Beaconreported in mid-August that Ocasio-Cortez was just shy of spending $480,000 with Facebook over the preceding 90 days.
Earlier this month, Ocasio-Cortez said that Facebook's 'reckless behavior represents a threat to our privacy & American democracy.'
Zuckerberg himself said:
'If someone’s going to try to threaten something that existential, you go to the mat+fight.'
Well, Facebook’s reckless behavior represents a threat to our privacy & American democracy.
Some things are worth fighting for. So let’s go to the mat & fight. https://t.co/YsZzJpDBtk
— Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (@AOC) October 1, 2019
Last November, she also took to Twitter to slam Facebook, saying it had 'clearly lost control of their product' for allowing conspiracy theories and fake quotes to stay on the website.
That the right is mobilizing fake quotes, conspiracies + outright hatred, particularly on Congresswomen of color, shows how vapid they are on actual issues.
The racism allowed towards Ilhan + others is completely unacceptable. @Facebook has clearly lost control of their product. https://t.co/vqRaM3iAjX
— Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (@AOC) November 19, 2018
Earlier in the week, Zuckerberg defended the tech company during a speech at Georgetown University. The social-media giant, he said, is committed to 'giving people a voice.'
'[A]s long as enough of us keep fighting for this, I believe that more people’s voices will eventually help us work through these issues together and write a new chapter in our history—where from all of our individual voices and perspectives, we can bring the world closer together,' Zuckerberg said.
Socialist Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) and other Democrats on the House Financial Services Committee were slammed online on Wednesday over their “arrogant,” “inaccurate,” and “embarrassing” attacks on Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg.
Zuckerberg appeared before the committee for over six hours to answer questions about Facebook’s proposed cryptocurrency, Libra.
“Anybody who believes the Democrats are angry at Facebook because they want more free speech should take a look at this,” Daily Wire Editor-in-Chief Ben Shapiro commented on the hearing. “Democrats are angry at Facebook because they want less free speech. They simply want more Democratic control of the means of informational distribution.”
Rep. Al Green (D-TX) pressed Zuckerberg about the representation that certain intersectional groups have within the company’s Libra project.
After asking how many women and how many minorities worked on the project, Green asked Zuckerberg: “Are there any members of the LGBTQ+ community associated with this association, Mr. Zuckerberg?”
WATCH:
.@RepAlGreen is incredulous Mark Zuckerberg doesn’t know how many staffers working on Libra are LGBT pic.twitter.com/K6AJXFIZlp
— Tom Elliott (@tomselliott) October 23, 2019
Senior RealClearInvestigations writer Mark Hemingway commented on Greens’ remarks, tweeting: “Gotta love it when bosses make a habit of brushing up on their employees’ sex lives. Really shows you care.”
“Is it legal to collect this information?” Reason staff editor Liz Wolf tweeted. “Is it in any way relevant to the employee’s ability to do their job well? JFC, people.”
During another portion of questioning, Rep. Joyce Beatty (D-OH) suggested, without evidence, that Zuckerberg had “ruined the lives of many [African-Americans].”
“Do you know what percentage of African Americans are on Facebook, in comparison to majority folks?” Beatty pressed. “Do you know what the percentages are?”
Zuckerberg responded: “I don’t because we don’t collect the races of people.”
WATCH:
Democrat Rep. Joyce Beatty (OH) gets nasty with Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg: “You have ruined the lives of many [African-Americans]”
What on earth is she talking about?
This is insane pic.twitter.com/ugViEELGRO
— Ryan Saavedra (@RealSaavedra) October 23, 2019
“Holy, this lady almost makes AOC look competent,” Dave Rubin commented. “I actually feel bad for Zuckerberg. That’s how totally ridiculous these congresspeople are.”
During another embarrassing portion of the hearing, far-left Rep. Ayanna Pressley (D-MA) attacked Zuckerberg over the fact that some people in the world do not have a lot of money.
Pressley, like many of her Democrat cohorts, repeatedly pressed Zuckerberg on questions that he was unlikely to know the answers to and then cut him off before he could offer any real response to their questions.
WATCH:
.@RepPressley attacks Zuckerberg, says Libra won’t be useful for people with “virtually no money” pic.twitter.com/eF4Ad5wW9W
Ocasio Cortez Zuckerberg
— Tom Elliott (@tomselliott) October 23, 2019
The most cringeworthy portion of the hearing belonged to Ocasio-Cortez, whose arrogance and desire for censoring her opponents was on full display.
Ocasio-Cortez suggested that she wanted to take advantage of the fact that Facebook tries to not censor political speech from politicians by intentionally lying in her campaign ads, specifically wanting to falsely claim that Republicans supported her $93 trillion Green New Deal.
WATCH:
Socialist Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) gets nasty with Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg
AOC’s arrogance here is absolutely embarrassing pic.twitter.com/gVTURgvzlk
— Ryan Saavedra (@RealSaavedra) October 23, 2019
Ocasio-Cortez then leveled bogus attacks against The Daily Caller, a conservative publication that has been critical of Ocasio-Cortez’s often flawed ideas and has often called out her false statements and highlighted corruption that involves her.
WATCH:
.@AOC attacks Zuckerberg for the @DailyCaller having a role in fact checking. She says the news outlet “has ties to white supremacists.” pic.twitter.com/wRe74ixjZP
— Tom Elliott (@tomselliott) October 23, 2019
Ocasio-Cortez claimed that The Daily Caller “has ties to white supremacists,” a claim that drew quick response from the leadership at The Daily Caller.
“Those accusations are rich coming from the leader of the most openly anti-Semitic freshman Congress in modern American history,” Daily Caller Editor-in-Chief Geoffrey Ingersoll told The Daily Wire. “Ocasio-Cortez herself employed a staffer who lionized Nazis collaborators. Maybe she should spend more time cleaning her room and making her bed before she goes to work.”
Ocasio Cortez Mark Zuckerberg
“Congresswoman Ocasio-Cortez’s call for censorship is typical coming from a party hellbent on annihilating opposing views, in this case one of the only groups of journalists aggressively reporting on her,” Ingersoll added.
In a tweet, The Daily Caller wrote: “Ooh did our reporting on her campaign finance shenanigans get under her skin?”
The tweet linked to a report by investigative reporter Andrew Kerr titled, “Ocasio-Cortez And Her Chief Of Staff ‘Could Be Facing Jail Time’ If Their Control Over PAC Was Intentionally Hidden, Former FEC Commissioner Says.”
The Daily Caller issued a statement on Ocasio-Cortez’s remarks from publisher Neil Patel.
“Our reporting has directly contributed to putting four members of the ‘alt-right’ in prison and sending two more on the run, at great personal risk to our reporters on the ground,” Patel wrote. “And as a minority-owned and minority-run news company with a diverse staff — including many African-American, Jewish, Asian, and other minority employees — any allegation that our company is in league with white supremacy is offensive.”
“We have denounced white supremacy in the past and are happy to do so again,” Patel continued. “We share nothing with them and they aren’t welcome at our company. For a sitting member of Congress to knowingly repeat such spurious allegations — especially during these polarized, violent times — is not just despicable, it endangers our staff.”
.@AOC’s statement is dangerous on a fundamental level, not just because it is inaccurate and damaging.
I have a diverse staff — in politics, race, and creed — and when lunatics roaming the streets think its okay to get violent, this kind of allegation puts my reporters at risk. https://t.co/W3tNY7Ivkz
— Geoffrey Ingersoll (@GPIngersoll) October 24, 2019
Ocasio-Cortez’s attacks on Zuckerberg predictably earned the strongest negative reaction online.
Mark Zuckerberg Ocasio Cortez
Dave Rubin tweeted: “She’s absolutely awful. Zuckerberg tries to calmly explain that allowing people to decide for themselves is sometimes what’s right. That’s foreign to progressive groupthink.”
Tim Pool tweeted: “AOC just proved exactly why Mark Zuckerberg is right to not police truthfulness of political speech Poynter runs the fact checking approval for Facebook, she is wrong and is smearing the Daily Caller Should Facebook ban AOC from saying this on FB?”
Guy Benson tweeted: “Can confirm: White supremacy was not joked about, made light of, espoused, or even mentioned at the ‘far right’ / Zuckerberg dinner party I attended. What a performance she put on.”
Allie Beth Stuckey tweeted: “My gosh. @AOC tries very hard to seem fierce and operates solely out of a desire for viral clips. These questions are not at all interesting or clever, and she is cringefully arrogant.”