AOC has spoken out about the events that led to the insurrection as she lashed out at Facebook and its billionaire CEO Mark Zuckerberg.
In her fiery speech, Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez insisted that the tech giant was partially to blame for the deadly riot that took place at the US Capitol last Wednesday.
Accusing the platform of “trying to do as much damage control as possible,” the New York congresswoman, who previously voiced concerns over disinformation present on social media, insisted that Facebook knew about the false information that led to the insurrection.point 562 | 1
“But they knew. Not only did they know but they allowed it,” AOC said during a town hall meeting on Friday.
“We knew this was a problem. We knew this so far out that pre-COVID, I asked him specifically about election disinformation and its ties on Facebook to White supremacist organizations, and the ties that ‘fact-checking organizations’ had to other White supremacist outlets.
“And he wouldn’t answer. So, there’s a very clear link here.”
Declaring that the social media giant was partially to blame for the recent events, AOC added:
“He is part of this problem. And Mark Zuckerberg and Facebook bear partial responsibility for Wednesday’s events, period.”
While Facebook indefinitely suspended Donald Trump’s account following the Capitol riot, AOC suggested more should be done about cracking down on false information prior to the insurrection.
In a recent attempt to distance the tech giant from potential blame for the assault on the Capitol, Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg claimed that content associated with Proud Boys, QAnon, and Stop the Steal rhetoric had been removed from the platform.
“Our enforcement’s never perfect, so I’m sure there were still things on Facebook… I think these events were largely organized on platforms that don’t have our abilities to stop hate, and don’t have our standards and don’t have our transparency,” Sandberg told Reuters.
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