Zuckerberg Flayed After Dem Asks ‘How Many Times Is Steve Bannon Allowed to Call for the Murder of Gov’t. Officials?’

Facebook co-founder, chairman, and CEO Mark Zuckerberg is being highly criticized on social media for his remarks during a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing Tuesday morning.

Senator Richard Blumenthal asked Zuckerberg about a recent controversy – one that led to massive outrage, and different responses, on multiple social media platforms.

“How many times is Steve Bannon allowed to call for the murder of government officials before Facebook suspends his account?” the Senator from Connecticut asked.

Bannon is the former Trump campaign CEO, former Trump White House chief strategist, and former Breitbart executive chairman who has held other right wing and extremist posts.

He recently called for the beheadings of FBI Director Chris Wray and Dr. Anthony Fauci, who is the longtime Director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID).

Twitter banned Bannon over his call to behead the two federal officials. Facebook did not.

Zuckerberg defended merely removing Bannon’s video, but not banning him, saying only terrorist or child exploitation content deserves immediate permanent user removal from the platform.

“How many times is Steve Bannon allowed to call for the murder of government officials before Facebook suspends his account?” pic.twitter.com/VO9Y66AsNN

— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) November 17, 2020

The Facebook CEO’s response elicited more outrage.

His response is telling: Zuckerberg says only “terrorist content” gets you banned right away. I guess calling for the beheading of govt officials isn’t considered terrorism anymore. https://t.co/fzDl24spoN

— Aaron Kessler (@akesslerdc) November 17, 2020

Mark Zuckerberg defends keeping Steve Bannon on Facebook after saying Dr. Fauci should be beheaded — if you’re a journalist and you’re still not calling Facebook a right-wing media outlet I think it’s pretty clear you’re being deliberately dishonest at this point https://t.co/DZ7nYzjHop

— Matt Negrin, HOST OF HARDBALL AT 7PM ON MSNBC (@MattNegrin) November 17, 2020

Zuckerberg just confirmed again that Steve Bannon calling for Dr. Fauci’s beheading doesn’t warrant a ban. Well then WTF does? This is ludicrous.

— Scott Dworkin (@funder) November 17, 2020

An astonishing answer from Mark Zuckerberg https://t.co/8Gj4T7Yhi9

— Toby Earle (@TobyonTV) November 17, 2020

Watch Zuckerberg answer @SenBlumenthal:

Zuckerberg: “If people are posting terrorist content…then the first time that they do it, then we will take down their account.”

How on earth was Bannon’s call to murder government officials not terrorist content? Because he’s white? https://t.co/lQEwH906tp

— Ryan Goodman (@rgoodlaw) November 17, 2020

Gotta admire just how committed to being horrible Facebook and Zuckerberg are. Truly the greatest villains of this century. https://t.co/h04Tq2EnJw

— Asi Behar (@asibehar) November 17, 2020

Reminder: Facebook covered up what was ultimately understood as a massive election security incident paying off $5B to avoid further deposition and scrutiny. It connected directly to Bannon. We don’t know what Bannon has over Zuckerberg beyond obviously his influence network. https://t.co/WhF2Oa5Vkk

— Jason Kint (@jason_kint) November 17, 2020

Asked again about the Bannon beheading video and how it was allowed to rack up 200,000 views.

Zuckerberg says FB took it down as it violated the policies. Fails to mention it stayed on the platform for 10 hours.

— David Gilbert (@daithaigilbert) November 17, 2020

Zuckerberg again pretending FB is merely a platform and not a publisher with responsibilities. Get real Zuck. And take down Bannon’s account. https://t.co/IBefR7JkW1

— Graham Lovelace (@glovelace) November 17, 2020