Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg and Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey were unable to think of any liberal person or entity that has been censored by either platform during Wednesday’s Senate hearing on big tech censorship.
Republican Utah Sen. Mike Lee asked Zuckerberg and Dorsey to name “one high-profile person or entity from a liberal ideology” that was barred off either platform. However, neither CEO was able to think of someone on the spot.
“I can get you a list of some more of this but there are certainly many examples that your Democratic colleagues object to when … a fact-checker might label something as false if they disagree with it, or, um,” Zuckerberg said before Lee cut him off.
Mark Zuckerberg and Jack Dorsey really struggled when asked to list a person or entity from the political left that Twitter or Facebook have censored. It speaks volumes how hard this was for them. pic.twitter.com/l9nUivXqpQ
— Robby Starbuck (@robbystarbuck) October 28, 2020
“I get that, I just want to be clear, I’m just asking you if you could name for me, one high-profile liberal person or company who you have censored,” Lee said. “I just want one name, one person or one entity.”
Zuckerberg then stalled, eventually telling Lee he would need more time to “think about it” and get a “list.”
“But there are certainly many issues on both sides of the aisle where people think we are making content-moderation decisions that they disagree with,” Zuckerberg said.
Lee then turned his attention to Twitter, asking Dorsey if he could provide an answer for the same question, according to Fox News.
“Well, we can give a more exhaustive list, but again, we don’t have the political ideology of our accounts,” Dorsey said. (RELATED: ‘I Will Not Tolerate Any Beard-Shaming’: Jack Dorsey’s Quarantine Look Steals The Show At Tech Hearing)
“I’m not asking for an exhaustive list, I’m asking for a single example,” Lee retorted. “Just one individual, one entity.”
“We’ve taken action on tweets from members of the House for election misinfo,” Dorsey said, unable to provide the name of any Democratic members of Congress.
Senate Republicans subpoenaed Zuckerberg and Dorsey to respond to the censorship of articles after Twitter deactivated the New York Post’s account after they published a story about Hunter Biden using information obtained from a laptop once owned by Hunter.
The Post’s account was later reactivated Wednesday only after Dorsey told Republican Texas Sen. Ted Cruz that “anyone can tweet these articles,” according to The New York Post.