Whoopi Goldberg said Tuesday that she was “thrilled” to see Facebook face a lengthy outage, arguing that executives needed to “pay attention” to what their product did to children.
Goldberg and her cohosts on ABC’s “The View” discussed the Facebook outage — which also affected Instagram and WhatsApp — and the fact that Facebook was under fire on Capitol Hill for allegedly putting profits over people. (RELATED: Facebook Whistleblower Says Company ‘Paying For Its Profits With Our Safety’)
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They began by discussing the idea that Facebook had essentially become a “monopoly” after buying up both Instagram and WhatsApp. They also noted just how many people had been affected — from teens sharing photos on Instagram to officials using WhatsApp to help coordinate extractions from Taliban-controlled Afghanistan — when the entire thing came crashing down.
“I think we have to realize, Facebook goes far beyond just the old social network we know,” guest host Alyssa Farah said, adding, “They own major industries, and businesses rely on it.”
Cohost Joy Behar referred to Facebook as a “destructive force around the world.”
“I’m thrilled that it went down,” Goldberg said. “I’m thrilled that it went down, and hopefully we can say here are things that you need to concentrate on when there’s stuff going on overseas. You know, let’s work to get our folks out.”
“When it’s stuff going on here, and people are telling you kids are killing themselves, pay attention,” Goldberg said, suggesting that government regulation of social media might follow. “We’re going to take the right to have this away from you.”