Facebook Refuses to Answer Dozens of Questions from Cruz About Its Censorship of Conservatives

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We are seeing an unprecedented erosion in our First Amendment rights, increasingly prohibiting the flow of ideas and free expression in the public square (social media). Run by left-wing self-possessed snowflakes, social media giants are indulging their worst autocratic impulses. And because they can, it is getting worse. “Absolute power corrupts absolutely.”

But the Senate should not let this drop. They should pursue Facebook until they have answers, and once they have the answers, they should take action accordingly. Having been one of the early targets of social media censorship on Facebook, YouTube et al, I have long advocated for anti-trust action against these bullying behemoths.

Facebook has launched many attacks against this site. It labeled my site as “spam” and removed every Geller Report post — thousands upon thousands of them, going back years – from Facebook. It also blocked any Facebook member from sharing links to the Geller Report. The ramping up of the shutting-down of sites like mine is neither random nor personal. The timing is telling. The left is gearing up for the 2018 midterm elections, and they mean to shut down whatever outlet or voice that helped elect President Trump, the greatest upset in left-wing history.

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We can’t let this happen. We need anti-trust action against these social media monsters, and we need it quickly.

“Facebook Avoids Answering Dozens of Follow-Up Questions from Senate,” by Charlie Nash, Breitbart, June 12, 2018 (thanks to Todd):

Facebook finally responded to follow-up questions from senators following Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg’s hearing in front of Congress in April, however, the company opted to avoid answering dozens of questions.

Despite Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) formally requesting in his questions for Facebook to “provide a wholly contained answer to each question,” which “should not cross-reference answers provided in other questions,” Facebook disregarded this request and avoided questions, including simple “yes or no” questions, by deferring Cruz to other generic answers at least 69 times.

Instead of answering each question, as requested, many questions were answered with, “See response to question [X],” while in others, they claimed not to “maintain statistics on these data points.”

Facebook refused to directly answer Cruz’s questions whether Charles Murray’s The Bell Curve, the Bible, criticism of Islam, and anti-immigration opinions constitute as “hate speech” on the platform….

During Mark Zuckerberg’s hearing before the Senate Judiciary and Commerce Committees in April, the Facebook CEO replied, “I’ll have my team get back to you,” or some other variation of the same answer at least 21 times.

Zuckerberg also declined to share Facebook’s definition of “hate speech,” and dodged a number of questions.

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Sing On
Sing On
5 years ago

I’m betting the issue is the offshoring of software development work. Most goes to India (even though they have a large Muslim population there are other elements of bias based on their reaction to the Quantico episode), but in this particular case I think the offshoring to Muslim majority nations is a big part of the issue. Facebook has offices in Dubai and may have employees there involved in content censorship. But it’s their servers so they can choose what content they wish to censor. Nothing illegal about that. Sorry but it’s really up to the individual to be wise to these things.

felix1999
felix1999
5 years ago
Reply to  Sing On

Offshoring this has been going on since the 1990’s to India. It used to be that just U.S. citizens were the project managers. Now they no longer need to use them for that. Muslims aren’t interested in programming. It’s mostly Indians that do the programming. They DO want censorship!

In the U.S. Facebook, is a publically traded stock and they are not immune to freedom of speech. Censorship is ILLEGAL in the U.S.. Other countries can censor whatever they like but again, censorship is ILLEGAL in the U.S.!

Sing On
Sing On
5 years ago
Reply to  felix1999

Agree to disagree. News has a responsibility to freedom of speech because one of their customer commitments is honest reporting. But they can cherry pick what to utilize freedom of speech for. The government cannot. So no censorship. Facebook is not a news outlet and made no such promises of freedom of speech to it’s primarily non paying users. So they can cherry pick content for their servers. It’s just the government cannot.

Halal Bacon
Halal Bacon
5 years ago

Who uses facebook?

felix1999
felix1999
5 years ago
Reply to  Halal Bacon

Idiots!

taxpayer22
taxpayer22
5 years ago

In 2012, Maxine Waters bragged about Obama’s Facebook Database with information on ‘Every Individual’ .

felix1999
felix1999
5 years ago
Reply to  taxpayer22

It’s true! Zuck developed something that was very valuable and KNEW it when he did it. It was ALL part of his plan. People like “free” stuff only it isn’t free! I don;t know if that is the zip ode database that Obama referred to. I think it might be something else because Obama wanted that completed before he left office. Obama does have something nefarious going on with that.

Zuckerberg Classmate Reveals the Lie That Started His Entire Empire

BY BENJAMIN ARIE
APRIL 19, 2018 AT 1:20PM

“You’re in charge of your own data. There’s nothing to worry about.”

That, in so many words, was the basic message of Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg during his recent testimony in front of Congress. Zuck faced tough questions as part of the fallout from recent scandals, but one of the original users of his social network just dropped a bombshell about how long those problems have existed.

Julia Carrie Wong was among the first people to join Facebook back in 2004. She was also a classmate of Zuckerberg at Harvard University, where the social network famously began.

“I was one of Facebook’s first users. I shouldn’t have trusted Mark Zuckerberg,” declared Wong in a recent feature published by The Guardian, a widely respected British newspaper.

In the scathing article, Wong accused the now-famous CEO of lying to the early members of the site… and of continuing the same lie today.

“Last week, Zuckerberg was called to answer for himself. Over the course of two days of questioning before Congress, Zuckerberg sought to assure the public that we, not he, are in ‘complete control’ of our relationships with Facebook,” Wong explained.

“He repeated this guarantee dozens of times, returning again and again to the idea that users can control their Facebook data,” she continued.

In the former Harvard student’s view, Zuckerberg’s assurances to Congress were the same as his early promises when Facebook was run from a dorm on campus. Both then and now, she insists, the central promise is tragically untrue.

“But the Zuckerberg of 2018 sounds suspiciously like the ‘Mark E Zuckerberg ’06’ who was interviewed by the Harvard Crimson on 9 February 2004 about his brand new website,” she wrote.

“It was this article that prompted my roommates and me to start entrusting a stranger behind a computer screen with the keys to our identities: names, birthdates, photographs, email addresses, and more,” Wong continued.

During the 2004 interview with the student newspaper — a quaint time when Facebook boasted about “hundreds” of users — a fresh-faced Mark Zuckerberg assured his classmates that privacy was in their hands.

“There are pretty intensive privacy options,” he told the paper. “People have very good control over who can see their information.”

The woman who had a front-row seat to the explosive growth of Facebook isn’t buying it.

RELATED: Photoshopped Pic of Kanye and Obama is Best Thing You’ll See All Week

“Zuckerberg was lying then and he’s lying now,” she declared. “We do not have ‘complete control’ and we never have, as evidenced by the fact that even people who never signed up for Facebook have ‘shadow profiles’ created without their consent.”

“He has been getting away with this same spin for 14 years, two months, and eight days,” the former classmate of Zuckerberg continued.

As evidence of that “spin,” Wong recalled instant messages that were sent between Mark Zuckerberg and one of her Harvard friends during the early days of Facebook.

“During those first few weeks of Facebook’s existence, while he was assuring his fellow college students that we could trust him with our identities, he had a private conversation on instant messenger with a friend,” wrote Wong. “That conversation was subsequently leaked, and published by Silicon Valley Insider. It is as follows:”

ZUCK: yea so if you ever need info about anyone at harvard

ZUCK: just ask

ZUCK: i have over 4000 emails, pictures, addresses, sns

FRIEND: what!? how’d you manage that one?

ZUCK: people just submitted it

ZUCK: i don’t know why

ZUCK: they “trust me”

ZUCK: dumb f**ks

Wong then launched into her most scorching criticism of Zuckerberg and Facebook yet.

“In the intervening years, I’ve learned that Zuckerberg values his own privacy so much that he has security guards watching his trash, that he bought four houses surrounding his own house to avoid having neighbors, that he sued hundreds of Hawaiians to sever their claim to tiny plots of land within his massive Kauai estate, and that he secretly built tools to prevent further private messages from coming back to haunt him,” she ranted.

“What I haven’t learned, or seen any sign of, is that he has changed his opinion of the intelligence of his users,” Wong concluded. “It’s Zuckerberg’s world, and we’re all just a bunch of dumb f***s living in it.”

Social networks certainly have value, but they can also become colossal nightmares. Whether the pros outweigh the cons for Americans and conservatives on Facebook remains to be seen.

https://www.westernjournal.com/ct/zuckerberg-classmate-accuses-lie/?utm_source=spotim&utm_medium=spotim_recirculation&spotim_referrer=recirculation

Ziggy46
Ziggy46
5 years ago
Reply to  felix1999

Excellent commentary, Felix.

santashandler
santashandler
5 years ago
Reply to  felix1999

All the more reason for anyone to delete their FB account if they have one. Why would anyone continue with FB at this point.

taxpayer22
taxpayer22
5 years ago

Diamond and Silk: “If a privately owned bakery has to go against their Christian values to bake a cake, then Mark Zuckerberg is going to have to suck it up buttercup and allow Diamond and Silk to speak our truth.”

aemoreira1981
aemoreira1981
5 years ago
Reply to  taxpayer22

Well, that case got overturned.

aemoreira1981
aemoreira1981
5 years ago

This is also a question of what government has a need to know. Facebook sees right through this shell game and isn’t cooperating with it. I would have junked the request outright.

Achmed Mohandjob
Achmed Mohandjob
5 years ago
Reply to  aemoreira1981

That is because you are a blithering idiot that only plays “pretend”.

felix1999
felix1999
5 years ago

Cruz is another swamp critter. He wants to be re-elected again.
Then you won’t hear from him again. He does nothing to help Trump.
Of course Zuck won’t give answers. He knows money BUYS them off and that is what he did.

Covadonga
Covadonga
5 years ago
Reply to  felix1999

Ted Cruz and Mike Lee have opposed the swamp and defended the Constitution more than any other senators.

Ghost Rider
Ghost Rider
5 years ago

-UCK—-FACEBOOK

Ziggy46
Ziggy46
5 years ago

Zuckerberg is the quintessential, aspirant totalitarian, Big Brother Progressive; the Constitutional Rights of Americans, in his perfidious mindset, is but for a few, leftists/Marxists/Collectivists. A gutless wonder who, like all Liberals, believes he is above the Constitution. Unfortunately, he is abetted by the amoeba-like weenies within the judiciary and other government agencies. What is most laughable; the Democrats and every loonie-leftist, including the MSM, continue to their fake-news that it is Trump who is anti-The First Amendment. The Big Lie was successful for Lenin, Stalin, Hitler and other despots why not America’s version thereof.

IzlamDownpressesHumanity
IzlamDownpressesHumanity
5 years ago

Ted Cruz, the only senator I trust anymore and I don’t see him playing fetch and step for the muslum vermin — not matter whether they’re considered “allies” of the free world or not.

R. Arandas
R. Arandas
5 years ago

Maybe conservatives should start mass boycotting Facebook then, at least until they start to change their policy!

santashandler
santashandler
5 years ago

“During Mark Zuckerberg’s hearing before the Senate Judiciary and Commerce Committees in April, the Facebook CEO replied, “I’ll have my team get back to you,”” Then, Congress should have responded with ‘ok, while we’re waiting for YOUR team to ‘get back’ to us, you are not allowed to leave here. How’s that.’ Zuckerberg’s response was very arrogant and he had no intention of answering any such questions, then, or in the future.

1984  George Orwell
1984 George Orwell
5 years ago

FakeBook!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Alleged-Comment
Alleged-Comment
5 years ago

It is obvious SATAN gives them their power. The little boy is not handsome and his wife is very “pake” looking. So, the boy is somewhat CURSED, but he still has his F*kebook. The demon tool to use against everybody, thanks to his father – SATAN.

Many of these newfound “tech” billionaires do not give a whit for conservative causes or Republicans and only seem to support the communist Demoncraps and illegal immigration. This is almost treasonous in nature from a country that made it all possible for them.

This is nearly UNFORGIVABLE.

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