Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez Suggests That Facebook Is A Threat To Democracy

New York Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez slammed Facebook and its founder Mark Zuckerberg and claimed that the internet giant bore “partial responsibility” for the Capitol Hill riots that rocked the nation’s capital earlier this January.

Ocasio-Cortez made the comments during a livestream with her followers, per The Hill. During the discussion, the 31-year-old lawmaker blamed the tech behemoth and claimed that it had helped incite violence following the 2020 presidential election.

“Mark Zuckerberg and Facebook bear partial responsibility for Wednesday’s events. Period,” she said.

“We knew this was a problem,” she continued, citing the fact that she had previously brought up the issue back in October 2019 during a congressional hearing in which she grilled Zuckerberg on extremist content on Facebook.

“There’s a very clear link here,” the congresswoman concluded.

Ocasio-Cortez also slammed the company’s attempts to work on its public image after the riots, claiming that it was “trying to do as much damage control as possible.” These included new policies such as banning the creation of any event near Capitol Hill on Inauguration Day and deleting any post that includes the phrase “Stop the Steal.”

However, Ocasio-Cortez later took her criticism for the internet behemoth a step further when discussing the future, going so far as to suggest that the company was a potential threat to democracy itself by having no “accountability.”

“I believe that this is directly connected to the complete lack of accountability that monopolies like Facebook have to democracy,” she said.

Ocasio-Cortez is far from the only lawmaker to suggest social media is damaging to democratic systems, and similar criticisms have been voiced not only from both sides of the aisle but also from the world at large.

For example, she herself was targeted by a lawsuit this week after a man in California sued Twitter, the congresswoman, and her colleague, Rep. Ilhan Omar. The man alleged that the Jack Dorsey-led company decision to ban President Donald Trump permanently but to allow Ocasio-Cortez’s “communist philosophies” on the platform was a double standard that was illegal, per The Inquisitr.

Ocasio-Cortez continued to express her thoughts on the future of big tech and its role in society.

“We’re going to have to figure out how we rein in our media environment so that you can’t just spew disinformation and misinformation,” she said.

“It’s one thing to have differing opinions, but it’s another thing entirely to just say things that are false.”

The Boston University graduate also sparked rumors earlier this week after appearing to wear a wedding ring in her latest Instagram post.