Culture

Please Enjoy Mark Zuckerberg Getting Absolutely Torn To Shreds By Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez

by Joseph Earp  24 October 2019
Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Mark Zuckerberg

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Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is uncommonly good at asking questions.

Maybe that sounds like faint praise, particularly given that Ocasio-Cortez is seen as one of the superstars of the international left. The congresswoman has shouted “trans rights!” on a livestream, pushed the Green New Deal, and endorsed Bernie Sanders. She is something of a boundary-pusher. But also, get her in a room, give her someone to ask questions of, and she transforms into something even more impressive.

Need evidence? Just check out her interrogation of Mark Zuckerberg, co-founder and CEO of Facebook.

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Zuckerberg has been called to congress before, but this time his presence was requested on account of Facebook’s longstanding practice of letting political candidates get away with running false advertisements. The folks at Facebook refuse to pull ads that feature outright lies — a habit that has turned the site into a den of fake news, full of sometimes outright libellous attacks on other political candidates.

Enter Ocasio-Cortez. Without batting an eyelid, the congresswoman went to town on Zuckerberg, calmly and repeatedly asking him to explain exactly why his company refused to stem the tide of fake news.

“Could I run ads targeting republicans in primaries saying they voted for the Green New Deal?” Ocasio-Cortez asked Zuckerberg, who appeared to be so flustered that he had to ask her to repeat the question. “I mean if you’re not fact-checking political advertisements, I’m just trying to understand the bounds here,” she continued.

“Congresswoman, I don’t know the answer to that off the top of my head,” Zuckerberg eventually managed.

“So you don’t know if I’ll be able to do that?” Ocasio-Cortez shot back.

“I think probably,” Zuckerberg, said, practically sinking into his chair.

From there, the interrogation only gets more intense, with the Facebook head eventually admitting that he believes keeping incorrect ads up is a matter of public interest. But not before he manages to squeak out that he thinks “lying is bad”, with all the petulant whinny of a naughty high-schooler.

Watch the back and forth below.