Yesterday, Mika Brzezinski blasted Twitter for not having canceled President Trump's account.
Today, it was her husband's turn to condemn social media, as Joe Scarborough vehemently tore into Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg and chief operating office Sheryl Sandberg for allegedly allowing "vile, disgusting, despicable" lies and conspiracy theories about Dr. Anthony Fauci to be spread on Facebook.
JOE SCARBOROUGH: I used to say that [Trump] was focusing too much on a third of the electorate, the 33%, the hard-core 33%. He really, he moved that up to about 40% through economic success. But now, he’s drilling down to the 10%. The 10% who share Dr. Fauci conspiracy theories on Facebook.
And how disgusting that Facebook allows those conspiracy theories to continue to churn. How disgusting. There's a New York Times article a couple of days ago—going off, sidebar here—how disgusting that Facebook allows those lies to circulate, and have so many more people see those lies than — see, like, even new Taylor Swift videos, just to talk about how big the lies Facebook allows Donald Trump to spread. And then they take down a commercial because it offends him?
Why don’t they just put "Trump 2020" on the front page of Facebook?
Truly disgusting, despicable stuff that’s happening. And it's all on Zuckerberg's and Sandberg’s resume. That they’re allowing these lies, these vile lies to be spread. But, anyway, I digress.
Maybe Joe should consider how he's done on spreading false information. Like saying it was a "lie" that Hillary Clinton received dirt on Donald Trump from foreign sources....like the Russians cooking up a dossier with Christopher Steele. Or spreading the Trayvon Martin "armed with Skittles" defense, suggesting conservatives wanted him shot. Or wisecracking the Republicans wanted to include "chaining women to a radiator in the kitchen" in the 2012 platform.
Scarborough didn't specify precisely which lies he had in mind, but he did mention a New York Times article from "a couple of days ago." That would seem to refer to this article of May 9th, about a video posted on YouTube and Facebook with clips from Plandemic, a supposed documentary which "describes an unsubstantiated secret plot by global elites like Bill Gates and Dr. Anthony Fauci to use the coronavirus pandemic to profit and grab political power."
According to the article:
"YouTube and Facebook have removed the 'Plandemic' scene, saying that it spread inaccurate information about Covid-19 that could be harmful to the public. But the video continues to circulate, as people post new copies."
If so, it would seem that rather than actively promoting conspiracy theories against Dr. Fauci, Facebook might be doing an inadequate job of policing itself and removing the clips in question.
But that didn't stop Scarborough from raging against the Facebook machine. It comes in the context of Mika and Joe's anger at Twitter for allowing President Trump's tweets intimating that Joe had a connection to the 2001 death of Lori Klausutis, who was an aide to then-Congressman Scarborough.
