Facebook was squarely in the sights of liberal politicians this week after the presidential campaign of Sen. Elizabeth Warren decried the company's decision to remove three of her ads that talked about breaking up Facebook.
Facebook almost immediately restored the ads — and they were only three out of over a dozen that Facebook allowed — saying they had only been removed because of a longstanding policy against videos that feature Facebook's own corporate logo. As Politico reports, the company said that despite the violation it would allow the ads in the spirit of "robust debate."
But that did not stop Warren from sending out a campaign email about the incident and tweeting about it, calling Facebook a "censor."
Curious why I think FB has too much power? Let's start with their ability to shut down a debate over whether FB has too much power. Thanks for restoring my posts. But I want a social media marketplace that isn't dominated by a single censor. #BreakUpBigTech https://t.co/UPS6dozOxn
— Elizabeth Warren (@ewarren) March 11, 2019
The ads, placed on Facebook Friday, all said, "Three companies have vast power over our economy and our democracy. Facebook, Amazon, and Google. We all use them. But in their rise to power, they’ve bulldozed competition, used our private information for profit, and tilted the playing field in their favor."
The incident, though seemingly resolved, prompted NY Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez to chime in Monday evening, saying "our society (namely our democracy) has a Facebook problem."
Just because a monopoly business happens to be online, that doesn’t mean it’s good.
— Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (@AOC) March 12, 2019
Facebook may have its own problems, but it’s increasingly starting to look like our society (namely, our democracy) has a Facebook problem. https://t.co/AjWeAf2BY3
As The Verge noted Tuesday, some Republicans like Sen. Josh Hawley (R-MO) have also been keen on breaking up big tech companies.
But it was Warren's battle cry that amused President Trump the most in a new interview with Breitbart. Trump said he "smiled" at the fact that Warren was coming after a company that is "so protective" of her, and he used the occasion to once again say "Russian collusion was a delusion" and say, "But what there is, is there was collusion between the Democrats and these tech companies." He also took another opportunity to declare that social media companies have a bias against conservatives, and he called out Twitter — which Warren never mentioned — for "blanking out" conservative voices.
Politico today notes the irony that Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg donated $2700 to Warren's then unannounced campaign back in September, and "Warren took at least $90,000 from employees of Amazon, Google and Facebook alone between 2011 and 2018."
Related: Mark Zuckerberg Suddenly Thinks Facebook Should Be A 'Privacy-Focused Platform'
