Facebook Is Bad

By Dustin Rowles | Politics | October 24, 2019 |

Yesterday, while several House committees were investigating impeachment, the House Finance Committee met with Mark Zuckerberg to discuss his new cryptocurrency, Libra. Zuckerberg tried to pitch the idea that Libra is independent of Facebook, which is a bunch of hooey, and good lord, do we really want Tom from Succession controlling both social media and world currency?

We do not.

No one got any satisfactory answers out of Zuckerberg regarding Libra, but damn, Zuckerberg got tore up on a couple of other issues involving Facebook, namely the fact that they refuse to fact-check political ads. AOC reduced Zuckerberg to a puddle of goo. She softened him up by suggesting that a social network responsible for Cambridge Analytica should not be put in charge of a world currency. Then she went in for the kill:

The two and a half minutes Mark Zuckerberg regretted starting Facebook to get a woman to talk to him. https://t.co/5aiGb19iQI — Travon Free (@Travon) October 24, 2019

What Zuckerberg is saying is that politicians can lie in their ads, and that the American people should be able to make independent judgments themselves based on what? … the misinformation spread on Facebook? Basically, Zuckerberg is saying that the most powerful social media network in the world should be allowed to be used as a tool by politicians to spread disinformation, disinformation bolstered by Russian bots.

Jesus Christ, it is so pathetic.

But at least Facebook weeds out videos of actual murders and other horrors and atrocities, which they do by hiring thousands of people to watch these videos 8 hours a day, giving them 9 minutes each day to cry in the stairwell while under supervision. The text written by Elizabeth May summarizing this video is not an exaggeration. It is actually how Zuckerberg responds.

KATIE PORTER: people have to monitor videos with torture and murder for your site without mental health benefits

ZUCKERBERG: we pay them $15 an hour

PORTER: they get 6 minutes to cry, supervised, in the stairwell

ZUCKERBERG: $20 an hour if they live in a city!



stone cold asshole https://t.co/BT0hU3Biyj — Elizabeth May (@_ElizabethMay) October 24, 2019

Is a lack of empathy a prerequisite for power in this country?

Dustin is the founder and co-owner of Pajiba. You may email him here, follow him on Twitter, or listen to his weekly TV podcast, Podjiba.

Header Image Source: CSPAN