GOP senator tells Mark Zuckerberg to sell off WhatsApp and Instagram and claims tech titan admitted to political bias in Facebook fact-check
Mark Zuckerberg capped off a day of meetings in Washington D.C. with a sit-down with Donald Trump in the Oval Office after sitting down with senators
Zuckerberg also had a closed-door dinner with senators Wednesday night
He was in Washington D.C. to lobby lawmakers on privacy and regulation issues
Josh Hawley, a GOP senator who has been fiercely critical of tech companies’ protection of consumer privacy, also met with Zuckerberg
Says he advised him to sell off WhatsApp and Instagram but he wasn’t receptive
By FRANCESCA CHAMBERS
DAILYMAIL.COM
20 September 2019
A GOP senator who has been fiercely critical of tech companies’ protection of consumer privacy says he told Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg to sell off WhatsApp and Instagram.
Republican Senator Josh Hawley told reporters Thursday that Zuckerberg was not ‘receptive’ to the suggestion he offered when the social media magnate visited Washington.
Hawley says he encouraged Zuckerberg to police his enterprises, if he doesn’t want federal regulators to step in.
‘I said to him, prove that you’re serious about data. Sell WhatsApp and sell Instagram,’ the Missouri senator said, according to CNBC, after their Capitol Hill meeting.
The senator says they also spoke about Facebook’s moderation of anti-abortion videos on that platform. He says that Zuckerberg told him ‘that there was clearly bias – those were his words – he said there was clearly bias’ against the conservative viewpoint.
Facebook has not responded to Hawley’s claims following the titan’s meetings in Washington D.C., which he capped off with a sit-down with President Donald Trump in the Oval Office.
Trump has complained about a bias against conservatives on social media platforms and has hauled in Twitter’s and Google’s CEOs over the past several months for private discussions at the White House.
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