On Wednesday, Rep. John Sarbanes (D-MD) suggested to Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg that the social media platform favored the Trump campaign over the Clinton campaign during the 2016 presidential elections.
“Do you know how many ads were approved for display on Facebook for each of the presidential candidates by Facebook?” Sarbanes asked during the House Energy and Commerce Committee hearing.
“Congressman I do not, sitting here, off the top of my head,” Zuckerberg responded.
“Let me tell you what they were because I do,” Sarbanes replied. “Trump’s campaign had an estimated 5.9 million ads approved and Secretary Clinton, 66,000 ads, so that’s about 90 times as much on the Trump campaign.”
Sarbanes responded by asking Zuckerberg, “Can you say with absolute certainly Facebook or any of the Facebook employees working as campaign embeds did not grant any special approval rights to the Trump campaign to allow them to upload a very large number of Facebook ads in that final stretch?”
“Congressman, we apply the same standard to all campaigns,” Zuckerberg answered.
“Can you say that there were not special approval rights granted?” Sarbanes continued. “Is that what you’re saying, ‘There were not special approval rights granted by any of the embeds or support folks, as you call them, in that Trump campaign?'”
Zuckerberg answered, “Congressman, yes …”
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