George Soros calls for Mark Zuckerberg to be removed from Facebook
George Soros calls for Mark Zuckerberg and Sheryl Sandberg to be removed from Facebook because they are ‘helping Trump get re-elected’ by not banning political ads
- Soros wrote to The Financial Times in a letter that it published on Monday
- He accused Zuckerberg and Trump of having a ‘mutual assistance agreement’
- Zuckerberg has long argued that it is up to governments to decide which political ads are appropriate and which aren’t
- By that logic, he’s said he should not, as a private business founder, have to make the decision to ban certain types of ads on Facebook
- Democrats are up in arms over the amount of power Zuckerberg holds
- In 2016, Facebook unwittingly facilitated Russian bots to sway the election in Trump’s favor with the type of ads that many now want to see banned
George Soros, the billionaire Republican donor, wrote a letter to The Financial Times on Monday calling for Zuckerberg to be removed
George Soros has called for Mark Zuckerberg to be removed from Facebook because he thinks he is ‘helping Trump get re-elected’ by not censoring or banning political ads.
Soros, a prolific billionaire Democrat donor, wrote a letter to The Financial Times on Monday calling on both Zuckerberg and Sheryl Sandberg to step down.
He has accused them of having a ‘mutual assistance arrangement’ with Trump that will ‘help him get re-elected’.
Soros was responding to an article Zuckerberg wrote himself last week which appeared in the Financial Times.
In it, the Facebook CEO said that he was committed to having regulation over political ads on the social network and that he would implement it when the government set the rules.
Soros, in his piece, argued there’s no need to wait that long.
‘Mark Zuckerberg should stop obfuscating the facts by piously arguing for government regulation.
‘Mr Zuckerberg appears to be engaged in some kind of mutual assistance arrangement with Donald Trump that will help him to get re-elected.
‘Facebook does not need to wait for government regulations to stop accepting any political advertising in 2020 until after the elections on November 4.
Soros wrote this letter to The Financial Times that was published on Monday
Soros accused both Zuckerberg and Sheryl Sandberg of having a ‘mutual assistance arrangement’ with Trump to allow the ads which promote him on fake information because it is so lucrative for them
‘If there is any doubt whether an ad is political, it should err on the side of caution and refuse to publish,’ he wrote.
Zuckerberg has shrugged responsibility in the past for knowing which types of ads to censor.
He has insisted on having autonomy over it, but has then also said it should not be down to a private company to set the rules on online political advertising.
In his piece last week, he wrote: ‘Who decides what counts as political advertising in a democracy?
‘If a non-profit runs an ad about immigration during an election, is it political?
‘Who should decide — private companies, or governments?’
Democrats are keen to see much of his power diminished.
Elizabeth Warren has argued in the past for the deconstruction of Facebook as an umbrella company in order to separate WhatsApp and Instagram from Zuckerberg.
The 2016 election saw an influx of Russian bot accounts which swayed things in favor of Trump by creating chaos or fake pages that promoted his agenda.
Many blamed Zuckerberg and Facebook for not spotting the problem until it was too late.
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