It seems that tech entrepreneur and 2020 presidential candidate Andrew Yang wants to regulate Facebook for allowing political ads on the platform deemed “false.”
Speaking during a CNN Town Hall in New Hampshire on Wednesday, Yang declared Facebook to be a “publisher” and not a platform, meaning the company can and should be forced to pay a price if it allows “misleading” political content on its site, which can easily translate into: content that does not favor Democrats. Delivering his message to CEO Mark Zuckerberg directly, Yang even said that Facebook is “contributing to the disintegration of our democracy.”
“Mark, your company is contributing to the disintegration of our democracy,” declared Yang. “If you’re an American and a patriot, and you care about the country your kids will inherit, then you need to have Facebook step up and say there will not be untrue political ads on your platform.”
When host Don Lemon asked Yang to clarify as to what he would do to “make” Facebook conform to this rule, the 2020 candidate said a law should be passed to penalize them.
“Well, my first preference is to sit down with a major organization like Facebook and say, ‘hey, do the right thing.’ But if they don’t want to do the right thing, then we have a legislature for a reason,” continued Yang. “We should just pass a law saying Facebook should not have verifiably false political advertisements on their platform. And if they do, then they should pay a penalty accordingly.”
Andrew Yang's message to Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerburg: “Your company is contributing to the disintegration of our democracy. … You need to have Facebook step up and say [there] will not be untrue political ads on your platform” #cnntownhall https://t.co/F6ixm5JWaE pic.twitter.com/7OWAakGNHK
— CNN Politics (@CNNPolitics) February 6, 2020
Not everything Yang had to say during his town hall stood in lockstep with the far-left, such as when he defended the Electoral College as an empowerer of rural areas. On fixing election issues, Yang proposed making Election Day a national holiday while encouraging participation and voter turnout.
“Candidates who say we should abolish the electoral college – one, it would require literally like a dozen states to shoot themselves in the foot and say they don’t want that kind of power anymore, which is a non-starter,” Yang said. “But two, it would end up disadvantaging rural areas because you would just campaign in major media markets and that’s not what the framers of the Constitution intended.”
“We should have ranked-choice voting in this country, so that people can actually vote the way they want and not be worried about ‘wasting their vote;’ we should have Election Day be a national holiday; we should automatically register new voters to make it easier for people to vote, instead of having these obstacles,” he said.
Ever since Facebook decided to allow politicians to publish ads on its platform, the Left has mercilessly been targetting the social media platform, routinely characterizing Mark Zuckerberg as an abetter of all things evil. Just last week, billionaire and far-left activist George Soros published a lengthy op-ed in The New York Times in which he attacked Zuckerberg for allowing President Donald Trump to be elected in 2016 and enabling his coming re-election in 2020.
“Facebook can post deliberately misleading or false statements by candidates for public office and others, and take no responsibility for them,” wrote Soros.
Soros even accused Facebook of developing “an informal mutual assistance operation or agreement” with President Trump in exchange for protection against attacks from regulators and the media. A Facebook spokesman told Business Insider that this charge is “just plain wrong.”
“I believe that Mr. Trump and Facebook’s chief executive, Mark Zuckerberg, realize that their interests are aligned — the president’s in winning elections, Mr. Zuckerberg’s in making money,” asserted Soros. “Let’s look at the evidence: In 2016, Facebook provided the Trump campaign with embedded staff who helped to optimize its advertising program. (Hillary Clinton’s campaign was also approached, but it declined to embed a Facebook team in her campaign’s operations.) Brad Parscale, the digital director of Mr. Trump’s 2016 campaign and now his campaign manager for 2020, said that Facebook helped Mr. Trump and gave him the edge. This seems to have marked the beginning of a special relationship.”