Democrats turn on Facebook and Zuckerberg

CNN is making it clear that its Democrat allies hate Facebook.

Facebook has also faced mounting scrutiny on both sides of the political aisle — but especially from Democrats — over what is seen by lawmakers as its market dominance as well as the perception, expressed in an interview published this week with Democratic presidential nominee Pete Buttigieg, that Zuckerberg has too much power.  

Facebook's refusal to remove a doctored video of Pelosi last May clearly irked Democrats, including Clinton, who called the video "sexist trash" and suggested the argument for taking it down "wasn't even a close call." 

But what really hit a nerve with Democrats more recently was Facebook's insistence last September that it would not fact-check ads from politicians — a policy many Democrats saw as beneficial to Trump's reelection campaign.  

Facebook, the Democratic National Committee said, was allowing Trump "to mislead the American people on their platform unimpeded." 

Sen. Elizabeth Warren ran a deliberately false ad to highlight what Democrats saw as the ludicrousness of the policy. The false ad claimed Zuckerberg had endorsed Trump's reelection campaign. 

When Biden's campaign demanded Facebook remove a false ad from the Trump campaign accusing Biden of corruption of his role in Ukraine policy during the Obama administration, Facebook refused. 

"Our approach is grounded in Facebook's fundamental belief in free expression, respect for the democratic process, and the belief that, in mature democracies with a free press, political speech is already arguably the most scrutinized speech there is," Katie Harbath, Facebook's head of global elections policy wrote in response last October. . . . 

But Facebook often appears to be the Democrats' favored target — even as leading Democratic candidates for president continue to sink money into the platform for their campaigns. . . .