Friday, November 16, 2018
A rising star in virtual-reality tech was ousted from Facebook because he supported the "wrong" guy
The Wall Street Journal reports that one of Facebook’s top executives and a rising star in the field of virtual-reality was essentially forced to resign in 2016 over his support of Donald Trump. The issue stemmed from a $10,000 donation Palmer Luckey made to an anti-Hillary Clinton group. While neither Facebook nor Luckey has ever publicly given a reason for why he left the company, CEO Mark Zuckerberg testified before Congress that his departure had nothing to do with politics.
It now appears that Zuckerberg’s testimony was not entirely honest, as a record of internal Facebook emails obtained by WSJ paints a different picture in which politics played a central role in Luckey’s ousting. The Journal notes, “Internal Facebook emails suggest the matter was discussed at the highest levels of the company. In the fall of 2016, as unhappiness over the donation simmered, Facebook executives including Mr. Zuckerberg pressured Mr. Luckey to publicly voice support for libertarian candidate Gary Johnson, despite Mr. Luckey’s yearslong support of Mr. Trump.”
Once again this latest news only goes to further expose the dangerous degree of massive leftist bias within the social media giants of Silicon Valley. Leftist bias is not new news, of course, but this story does undercut Zuckerberg’s claim that the admittedly “extremely left-leaning” environment of Silicon Valley does not impact Facebook’s policing of site content.
The story is a chilling one to those of us who are advocates of free speech. It also provides another example of what actual fascism looks like, similar to Google’s firing of programmer James Damore over his failure to fall in line with the company’s groupthink.
One final question: Did Zuckerberg lie under oath to Congress? It will be interesting to see if there is any congressional follow-up to this story.
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2 comments:
I avoid Facebook and all similar.
Zuckerberg cannot be charged with "lying under oath" because his testimony was not "sworn." He did not promise to tell the truth - that was one of the conditions of his testimony.
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