Entertainment

Hugh Grant Wants To Destroy Social Media: ‘I Would Just Pull The Plug’

REUTERS/Monica Almeida

Katie Jerkovich Entertainment Reporter
Font Size:

Hugh Grant said it’s beyond time to “pull the plug” on social media because of things like Donald Trump’s presidency and Brexit, among others.

“It’s particularly terrifying, the triumph of technology over democracy. You realize, [Donald] Trump couldn’t have happened without Facebook manipulation, and Brexit couldn’t have happened without it,” the 58-year-old actor explained during an interview for Variety’s “My Favorite Episode” podcast in a piece published Monday. (RELATED: Here Are The Best Photos Of Elizabeth Hurley From 2017 [SLIDESHOW])

25th Screen Actors Guild Awards - Show - Los Angeles, California, U.S., January 27, 2019 - Actor Hugh Grant presents. REUTERS/Mike Blake

25th Screen Actors Guild Awards – Show – Los Angeles, California, U.S., January 27, 2019 – Actor Hugh Grant presents. REUTERS/Mike Blake

“It’s all the ability now, people with enough money and resources, to manipulate swing voters through very highly tailored Facebook ads.” he added. “I would just pull the plug on social media.” (RELATED: Check Out The Hottest Looks From The 60th Grammy Awards [SLIDESHOW])

Grant continued, “I look at the pluses and minuses, and to me the minuses way outweigh the pluses. We had perfectly decent lives before social media. At the very minimum, I would take away anonymity from social media posts.”(RELATED: Julia Roberts Is Spilling Out Of Her Dress At Cannes Film Festival)

The “Love Actually” star is involved in a campaign called Hacked Off, and the group’s goal is to bring more attention to what was described as online propaganda. The initial focus of Hacked off was about U.K press reform initiatives and the media moguls “who control the world’s major news outlets.”

“These people have been running the country for decades and so Hacked Off was about, ‘is that a good thing?’ Grant shared.  “And it was also initially, specifically about the power of those newspapers to behave in any way they wanted, without regard to innocent people.”

It was only the latest comments from the “Notting Hill” star that created headlines. Last month, the “Bridget Jones’s Diary” actor made news when he said that he was too old to play a leading man in romantic comedies anymore.

“…I’ve gotten too old and ugly and fat to do them anymore, so now I’ve done other things and I’ve got marginally less self-hatred,” Grant explained.

PREMIUM ARTICLE: Subscribe To Keep Reading

Sign up

By subscribing you agree to our Terms of Use

You're signed up!

Sign up

By subscribing you agree to our Terms of Use

You're signed up!
Sign up

By subscribing you agree to our Terms of Use

You're signed up!

Sign up

By subscribing you agree to our Terms of Use

You're signed up!
Sign up

By subscribing you agree to our Terms of Use

You're signed up!

Sign Up

By subscribing you agree to our Terms of Use

You're signed up!
Sign up

By subscribing you agree to our Terms of Use

You're signed up!
Sign up

By subscribing you agree to our Terms of Use

You're signed up!
BENEFITS READERS PASS PATRIOTS FOUNDERS
Daily and Breaking Newsletters
Daily Caller Shows
Ad Free Experience
Exclusive Articles
Custom Newsletters
Editor Daily Rundown
Behind The Scenes Coverage
Award Winning Documentaries
Patriot War Room
Patriot Live Chat
Exclusive Events
Gold Membership Card
Tucker Mug

What does Founders Club include?

Tucker Mug and Membership Card
Founders

Readers,

Instead of sucking up to the political and corporate powers that dominate America, The Daily Caller is fighting for you — our readers. We humbly ask you to consider joining us in this fight.

Now that millions of readers are rejecting the increasingly biased and even corrupt corporate media and joining us daily, there are powerful forces lined up to stop us: the old guard of the news media hopes to marginalize us; the big corporate ad agencies want to deprive us of revenue and put us out of business; senators threaten to have our reporters arrested for asking simple questions; the big tech platforms want to limit our ability to communicate with you; and the political party establishments feel threatened by our independence.

We don't complain -- we can't stand complainers -- but we do call it how we see it. We have a fight on our hands, and it's intense. We need your help to smash through the big tech, big media and big government blockade.

We're the insurgent outsiders for a reason: our deep-dive investigations hold the powerful to account. Our original videos undermine their narratives on a daily basis. Even our insistence on having fun infuriates them -- because we won’t bend the knee to political correctness.

One reason we stand apart is because we are not afraid to say we love America. We love her with every fiber of our being, and we think she's worth saving from today’s craziness.

Help us save her.

A second reason we stand out is the sheer number of honest responsible reporters we have helped train. We have trained so many solid reporters that they now hold prominent positions at publications across the political spectrum. Hear a rare reasonable voice at a place like CNN? There’s a good chance they were trained at Daily Caller. Same goes for the numerous Daily Caller alumni dominating the news coverage at outlets such as Fox News, Newsmax, Daily Wire and many others.

Simply put, America needs solid reporters fighting to tell the truth or we will never have honest elections or a fair system. We are working tirelessly to make that happen and we are making a difference.

Since 2010, The Daily Caller has grown immensely. We're in the halls of Congress. We're in the Oval Office. And we're in up to 20 million homes every single month. That's 20 million Americans like you who are impossible to ignore.

We can overcome the forces lined up against all of us. This is an important mission but we can’t do it unless you — the everyday Americans forgotten by the establishment — have our back.

Please consider becoming a Daily Caller Patriot today, and help us keep doing work that holds politicians, corporations and other leaders accountable. Help us thumb our noses at political correctness. Help us train a new generation of news reporters who will actually tell the truth. And help us remind Americans everywhere that there are millions of us who remain clear-eyed about our country's greatness.

In return for membership, Daily Caller Patriots will be able to read The Daily Caller without any of the ads that we have long used to support our mission. We know the ads drive you crazy. They drive us crazy too. But we need revenue to keep the fight going. If you join us, we will cut out the ads for you and put every Lincoln-headed cent we earn into amplifying our voice, training even more solid reporters, and giving you the ad-free experience and lightning fast website you deserve.

Patriots will also be eligible for Patriots Only content, newsletters, chats and live events with our reporters and editors. It's simple: welcome us into your lives, and we'll welcome you into ours.

We can save America together.

Become a Daily Caller Patriot today.

Signature

Neil Patel