CNN Panelists Square Off on Facebook Censorship, Trump Threatening Zuckerberg with Prison: ‘You Don’t Seem To Be Very Upset About That!’
Panelists on The Chris Wallace Show clashed on Saturday in a debate on whether or not social media is censoring conservatives and former President Donald Trump threatening Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg with prison time.
In a letter to House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jim Jordan (R-OH) this week, Zuckerberg said senior officials from President Joe Biden’s administration “repeatedly pressured our teams for months to censor certain COVID-19 content, including humor and satire, and expressed a lot of frustration with our teams when we didn’t agree” during 2021.
The admission has fueled accusations that social media companies specifically targeted conservatives accounts during the Covid pandemic and beyond.
Pivot podcast host Kara Swisher dismissed the letter during a panel discussion on Saturday, claiming Zuckerberg wasn’t actually under any pressure and he’s just playing politics.
“I don’t think he was under any kind of pressure. He just decided not to do it and now he’s worried about House investigations and he’s worried about doing another hearing and so he’s decided to give them what they wanted, which is this letter,” she said.
National Review editor in chief Rich Lowry pushed back on this, but agreed Zuckerberg is playing politics ahead of the presidential election.
“This is outrageous, that the government would want to take out of the public domain any information, including jokes. If you’re an editor or somebody with responsibility over what’s out there and the government says to take down a joke, your answer has to be, no, pound sound, not in a million years,” he said.
“Let me just say, Rich, according to Mark Zuckerberg who is not under oath,” Swisher shot back.
“So you think he’s making it up?” Lowry asked.
“I absolutely do,” Swisher declared.
“Really? This is a fabrication and the whole Supreme Court case also, all the facts that have surfaced were made up?” Lowry asked.
“The Supreme Court case said that the government should be able to talk to these companies. These states were trying to stop it. The fact of the matter is Donald Trump has threatened prison for Mark Zuckerberg. Prison. Which is unprecedented. You don’t seem to be very upset about that,” Swisher said.
“But you’re saying on the one hand, it didn’t happen, but the government should be able to do it,” Lowry said before Wallace moved the debate forward.
The Supreme Court threw out a lower court’s ruling earlier this year that put restrictions on communications between government officials and social media companies.
Trump recently threatened to throw Zuckerberg in prison for life if he “steers” Facebook against him and does “does anything” to influence the election.
Watch above via CNN.
