(JTA) — The writer of “The Social Network” still has a couple things to say about Facebook and its founder, Mark Zuckerberg. And they aren’t good.
Famed screenwriter Aaron Sorkin penned an open letter to the embattled Zuckerberg in The New York Times on Thursday accusing him of “assaulting truth” and taking Zuckerberg to task for his recent defense of his social network’s permissive stance on free speech. Zuckerberg told Congress recently that Facebook will not police political ads.
“Congresswoman, in most cases, in a democracy, I believe people should be able to see for themselves what politicians they may or may not vote for are saying and judge their character for themselves,” Zuckerberg told Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., in an exchange that has gone viral.
Zuckerberg also said that Ocasio-Cortez could “probably” run ads falsely claiming that Republicans had voted for the Green New Deal, one of her signature progressive proposals.
Critics, including Sorkin, say that Zuckerberg’s position amounts to condoning lies and misinformation on the social media giant. He contrasted Facebook’s policy with what he characterized as the careful vetting of his 2010 movie about Zuckerberg. He called on Zuckerberg “to make Facebook a reliable source of public information.”
“But this can’t possibly be the outcome you and I want, to have crazy lies pumped into the water supply that corrupt the most important decisions we make together,” he wrote. “Lies that have a very real and incredibly dangerous effect on our elections and our lives and our children’s lives.”
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