Republicans Achieve The Impossible: Making Mark Zuckerberg Look Good

Chris Menahan
InformationLiberation
Jan. 31, 2024

Republican Senators beclowned themselves during a hearing on Wednesday with the heads of Big Tech social media platforms.

Old complaints about Big Tech censorship of right-wing views have been replaced with whining about anti-Israel bias (a.k.a. allowing too much free speech) and accusing tech companies of not censoring enough.

Lindsey Graham: "TikTok is being used to destroy the Jewish State"

Even if you think the social media companies ought to be more aggressively regulated, the idea that these people are going to do so rationally and constructively is laughable pic.twitter.com/sztYqWQROu
— Michael Tracey (@mtracey) January 31, 2024

Ted Cruz to TikTok CEO:

"If you look at what is on TikTok in China, you are promoting to kids: Science and math videos, educational videos ... In the United States, you are promoting to kids: Self-harm videos and anti-Israel propaganda." pic.twitter.com/io3jYe6CKf
— Citizen Free Press (@CitizenFreePres) January 31, 2024

Tom Cotton: "Have you ever been a member of the Chinese Communist Party?"

TikTok CEO Shou Zi Chew: "Senator, I'm Singaporean. No!"

Cotton: "Have you ever been associated or affiliated with the Chinese Communist Party?"

Chew: "No, Senator. Again, I'm Singaporean!" pic.twitter.com/5Wa72aJIr9
— Justin Baragona (@justinbaragona) January 31, 2024

Ted Cruz has done some important mathematical calculations comparing "Hashtag Taylor Swift" and "Hashtag Trump" on TikTok versus "Hashtag Uyghur" and "Hashtag Tiananmen Square." Undoubtedly, the calculations of Cruz are methodologically flawless and politically neutral pic.twitter.com/1LUhBSJ3hN
— Michael Tracey (@mtracey) January 31, 2024

Naturally, the "Intelligence Report" whose calculations Cruz cited here is a methodological joke, produced by a Serious-sounding outfit called "Network Contagion Research Institute," funded by the "Israel on Campus Coalition" and "Combat Hate Foundation" https://t.co/gnwomrOczj
— Michael Tracey (@mtracey) January 31, 2024

All their whining about censorship of content critical of China falls flat considering they all support censoring content critical of Israel.

The same goes for their accusations about dual loyalty.

This stunt from Josh Hawley's made the most headlines but it only made Zuckerberg look good:

Josh Hawley just accused Mark Zuckerberg of being personally responsible for "killing" kids who purportedly committed suicide because of social media. Again, this isn't rational oversight of powerful corporations -- which could be productive -- it's blinkered emotional blackmail pic.twitter.com/KP75P6ghbU
— Michael Tracey (@mtracey) January 31, 2024

GOP senators also argued that Zuckerberg wants sex trafficking and child abuse material on his website (by the way, isn't this the same Senate hearing room where just last month a Senate staffer filmed himself having gay sex?):

.@sentedcruz grills Mark Zuckerberg on his products’ complicity in child sexual exploitation.

“These results may contain images of child sexual abuse. And then you gave users two choices. Get resources or see results anyway. Mr. Zuckerberg, what the hell were you thinking?” pic.twitter.com/xSb3hEeU53
— Heritage Foundation (@Heritage) January 31, 2024

Marsha Blackburn to Mark Zuckerberg: "It appears you're trying to be the premier sex trafficking site in this country." pic.twitter.com/RngiXavBqc
— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) January 31, 2024

Lindsey Graham, who just demanded the US military bomb Iran, tells Zuckerberg he has "blood on his hands" because child s-exual abuse images are shared on META.

Zuckerberg has hired a massive team to work on solving the issue.pic.twitter.com/T4iunFQMTT
— Citizen Free Press (@CitizenFreePres) January 31, 2024

The dishonesty of their attacks only served to make Zuckerberg look like the good guy.

We all know their real criticism of these tech sites is they're not doing enough to censor criticism of Israel.

Republicans renew calls for TikTok ban as anti-Israel posts dominate app https://t.co/OHH5CXdvQ8 pic.twitter.com/Mu9vwaU9Hm
— New York Post (@nypost) October 31, 2023

They couldn't care less about protecting the First Amendment rights of their own constituents -- all they care about is censoring critics of Israel's genocide in Gaza.

We know this because they never did anything to protect our free speech rights when they controlled the House, Senate and presidency and instead have consistently championed censorship and called for more.

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