Senator Elizabeth Warren (D., Mass.) slammed Facebook for its handling of campaign ad policy on Thursday after CEO Mark Zuckerberg delivered a speech at Georgetown University about the dangers of censorship.
Warren has previously criticized Facebook’s decision to allow Trump campaign ads on its platform that accuse Joe Biden and his son Hunter of corruption, saying the ads constitute misinformation and should not have been approved for publication.
“Trump isn’t just posting a lie on his own page for his own followers,” Warren wrote on Twitter. “Facebook is accepting millions of dollars from Trump to run political ads, including ones with misinformation and outright lies.
“Facebook is actively helping Trump spread lies and misinformation,” she continued. “Facebook already helped elect Donald Trump once. They might do it again—and profit off of it.”
Zuckerberg in his speech and an interview with the Washington Post on Thursday defended Facebook’s policy of permitting campaign ads with misinformation and falsehoods.
“I don’t think people want to live in a world where you can only say things that tech companies decide are 100 percent true,” Zuckerberg said, continuing, “in a democracy, I think that people should be able to hear for themselves what politicians are saying.”
In his Georgetown speech, Zuckerberg presented Facebook’s failure to enter the Chinese market as an issue of free speech and censorship, saying Facebook’s privacy encryption brings the company into conflict with Chinese censors. However, Facebook has tried to make inroads into China in the past.
Warren has threatened during her campaign to break up big tech companies, a position Zuckerberg termed an “existential” threat to Facebook.