Sacha Baron Cohen launches fresh attack on Mark Zuckerberg on Twitter

‘One down. One to go’: Sacha Baron Cohen launches fresh attack on Mark Zuckerberg by tweeting image of the Facebook CEO shaking hands with Trump after election defeat

• Sacha Baron Cohen launched a fresh attack on Mark Zuckerberg on Saturday
• The Borat star shared an image to Twitter of Zuckerberg shaking hands with Trump, accompanied with the barbed caption: ‘One down. One to go’
• The taunting remark was made by the 49-year-old on Saturday, shortly after Joe Biden was announced as the projected winner of the 2020 election
• Baron Cohen has long been a critic of Zuckerberg, having first ignited the feud during a keynote speech at the Anti-Defamation League conference in 2019 
• The British actor-comedian slammed Facebook and other social media sites for ‘facilitating… all this hate and violence’ that has led to attacks on minorities 
• He launched a similar attack during a speech at the Golden Globe Awards, calling Zuckerberg a ‘naïve, misguided child who spreads Nazi propaganda’

Sacha Baron Cohen launched a fresh attack on Mark Zuckerberg over the weekend, taking aim at the Facebook CEO in a social media post about Donald Trump.

The Borat star shared an image to Twitter of Zuckerberg shaking hands with Trump at the White House, accompanied with the barbed caption: ‘One down. One to go.’

The taunting remark was made by the 49-year-old on Saturday, shortly after Joe Biden was announced as the projected winner of the 2020 election, rendering Trump a one-term president. 

Baron Cohen has long been a vocal critic of Zuckerberg, having first ignited his tirade during a keynote speech at the Anti-Defamation League conference in November last year.

The British actor-comedian slammed Facebook and other social media sites for ‘facilitating… all this hate and violence’ that has led to ‘surging’ hate crimes and a rise in ‘murderous attacks on religious and ethnic minorities.’

‘All this hate and violence is being facilitated by a handful of internet companies that amount to the greatest propaganda machine in history,’ he continued.

Sacha Baron Cohen (left) launched a fresh attack on Mark Zuckerberg (right) over the weekend

The Borat star shared an image to Twitter of the Facebook CEO shaking hands with Donald Trump at the White House, writing: ‘One down. One to go’

In his remarks, Baron Cohen blasted Zuckerberg and five other tech executives that he dubbed collectively as ‘the Silicon Six’ – a group that includes Google CEO Sundar Pichai; Google co-founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin; YouTube CEO Susan Wojcicki; and Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey.

‘The Silicon Six—all billionaires, all Americans—who care more about boosting their share price than about protecting democracy,’ Baron Cohen said.

‘This is ideological imperialism – six unelected individuals in Silicon Valley imposing their vision on the rest of the world, unaccountable to any government and acting like they’re above the reach of law.’

Baron Cohen saved most of his criticisms specifically for Zuckerberg.

‘It’s like we’re living in the Roman Empire, and Mark Zuckerberg is Caesar,’ the Ali G funnyman said.

‘At least that would explain his haircut.’

Baron Cohen, who is Jewish, also took Zuckerberg and Google to task for refusing to ban Holocaust deniers from the social network, a policy decision that has since been reversed.

‘[Zuckerberg] said that he found posts denying the Holocaust “deeply offensive,” but he didn’t think Facebook should take them down “because I think there are things that different people get wrong,”‘ Baron Cohen said.

‘At this very moment, there are still Holocaust deniers on Facebook, and Google still takes you to the most repulsive Holocaust denial sites with a simple click.

‘One of the heads of Google once told me, incredibly, that these sites just show “both sides” of the issue.

‘This is madness,’ he continued, before suggesting that if Facebook had been around during the 1930s, then Zuckerberg would have allowed Hitler to post ads targeting Jews, unopposed.

Baron Cohen has long been a vocal critic of Zuckerberg, having first ignited the feud during a keynote speech at the Anti-Defamation League conference last year

Reflecting on the speech last month, Baron Cohen said he felt compelled to ‘ring the alarm’ on Facebook’s ‘absurd’ handling of Holocaust denial and other racist content.

Speaking to the New York Times, he said the speech was ‘completely out of my comfort zone’, as he says he typically tries to avoid weighing in on political matters.

‘It was the first time I’d ever given a major speech in my own voice but I felt like I had to ring the alarm bell and say that democracy is in peril this year,’ Baron Cohen said. ‘I felt, even if it was going to destroy my career and people are going to come at me and say, “Just shut up, the last thing we need is another celebrity telling us what to do” — I fully understand people who do that — I felt I needed to do that to live with myself.’

Just two months after his ADL speech, Baron Cohen launched a similar attack on Zuckerberg during an address at the Golden Globe Awards, calling him a ‘naïve, misguided child who spreads Nazi propaganda’.

The comments came as Baron Cohen had been introducing the film JoJo Rabbit – a satirical movie about a German boy enrolled in the Nazi youth whose imaginary friend is Adolf Hitler.

‘The hero of this next movie is a naive, misguided child who spreads Nazi propaganda and only has imaginary friends. His name is Mark Zuckerberg.’

As gasps and awkward laughter broke out among the audience, the comedian continued: ‘Sorry, sorry. This is an old intro for the Social Network. I’m actually talking about JoJoRabbit. It’s nominated for two Golden Globes and it’s directed by its star, the brilliant and groundbreaking Taika Waititi.’

Zuckerberg has long been criticized of taking a more laissez-faire approach to content moderation than his other fellow Silicon Valley peers

Zuckerberg has long been criticized of taking a more laissez-faire approach to content moderation than his other fellow Silicon Valley peers. But, following the global #StopHateForProfit campaign that saw hundreds of companies pull ads from the platform over hate speech concerns, Zuckerberg has changed his course a little in 2020.

He has embraced more aggressive content moderation policies, with Facebook just last month announcing it would ban all content that denies or distorts the Holocaust.

Zuckerberg said a rise in both anti-Semitism and anti-Semitic violence was the driving force behind the decision.

‘My own thinking has evolved as I’ve seen data showing an increase in anti-Semitic violence, as have our wider policies on hate speech,’ he wrote to his personal account.

‘I’ve struggled with the tension between standing for free expression and the harm caused by minimizing or denying the horror of the Holocaust,’ he added.

Now, if a Facebook user clicks on a post that contains inaccurate or false information about the Holocaust, they will be redirected to credible information on an external site, the company said.

Zuckerberg wasn’t the only victim of Baron Cohen’s taunts on social media on Saturday. 

As multiple networks forecasted that Trump was heading for presidential defeat, Baron Cohen took to Twitter to poke fun at the one-term president.  

He said: ‘Donald – you’re out of work and I know I offered you a job. But your performance this past week was tragic and sad.’

‘Offer rescinded,’ he added.

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