"No better example of
Facebook's power than Zuckerberg being asked here whether Trump lobbied him,
rather than whether he lobbied Trump."
Monday, December 02, 2019
Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg
said in an interview Monday morning that he wasn't willing to divulge what he
and President Donald Trump talked about in a previously secret dinner at the
White House in October, calling the conversation a "private
discussion."
Zuckerberg was responding to a
question from CBS This Morning anchor Gayle King on the dinner, which
was made public on November 20.
"We talked about a number
of things that were on his mind and the topics that you'd read in the news
around our work," said Zuckerberg.
King pressed the social media
CEO on the conversation.
"People will say the
optics weren't good," King said of the dinner, which was also attended by
Facebook investor and Trump supporter billionaire Peter Thiel.
"Did he try to lobby you
in any way?" King asked, referring to reports that the president used the
dinner as a venue to complain about his view of the treatment of conservatives
on the social media platform.
"I want to respect that
it was a private discussion," said Zuckerberg.
The framing of King's
question—that Zuckerberg, not Trump, was the one at the dinner being
lobbied—was notable to Financial Times reporter Kadhim Shubber.
"No better example of
Facebook's power than Zuckerberg being asked here whether Trump lobbied him,
rather than whether he lobbied Trump," Shubber tweeted.
As Common Dreams reported,
news of the dinner set off a firestorm of criticism from progressives who found
both the meeting and the secrecy indicative of what Sen. Elizabeth Warren
(D-Mass.) called "corruption, plain and simple."
King also asked Zuckerberg
about his company's policy on allowing ads spreading political lies without
restriction. The Facebook CEO said that the public should be trusted to figure
the truth out.
"What I believe is in a
democracy is it's really important that people can see for themselves what
politicians are saying so they can make their own judgments," said
Zuckerberg.
NBC News reporter Ben
Collins pointed
out that the transparency Zuckerberg was celebrating apparently didn't
extend to his refusal to reveal what the president said during their dinner.
"Are these directly
contradictory statements? Yes. Does it matter? Lol, no, of course not,"
tweeted Collins.
Watch the interview, via CBS:
No comments:
Post a Comment