Borat star Sacha Baron Cohen lashed out against Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg in a profane rant, criticizing the tech billionaire for his recent speech in which he said it’s wrong for a private company to censor the news or politicians.
Sacha Baron Cohen also suggested Facebook has a “moral duty” to throw more people off its platform.
Zuckerberg delivered the speech Thursday at Georgetown University in Washington, D.C., addressing the importance of freedom of expression and the need for people to stop branding speech they don’t like as “dangerous.”
The Facebook head also said tech companies shouldn’t be deciding what is the truth or not. “As a principle, in a democracy, I believe people should decide what is credible, not tech companies,” Zuckerberg said.
He indicated in his speech that Facebook would not ban political ads in the future. “Banning political ads favors incumbents and whoever the media chooses to cover,” he said.
Zuckerberg’s speech comes after reports that he recently met with conservatives over concerns that Facebook was unfairly censoring righ-of-center views.
Bruno star Cohen hit back at Zuckerberg on Friday, saying that private companies like Facebook aren’t subject to the First Amendment.
“Just heard #MarkZuckerberg’s disingenuous speech. He is not the government, but the owner of a private business and not subject to the 1st Amendment,” the screen star said on Twitter.
Cohen didn’t address the monopolies that tech giants like Facebook and Twitter have amassed, giving the companies disproportionate control over what people can say and read online.
The actor suggested that Facebook should eject more people from its platform, saying that a hypothetical restaurant owner faced with neo-Nazi customers would do the same.
“He has every legal right, indeed a moral duty, to tell them to get the f**k out of his restaurant,” Cohen wrote.
This isn’t the first time that Cohen has lashed out against a social media company.
The Who Is America? star claimed in an interview earlier this year that U.S. democracy is “being disintegrated” under President Donald Trump and argued the social media giant Twitter is partly to blame.
On Thursday, Zuckerberg said that attempts to limit speech based on a distrust of average Americans to make up their own minds would be bad for democracy.
“I personally believe this is more dangerous for democracy over the long term than almost any speech.”
Follow David Ng on Twitter @HeyItsDavidNg. Have a tip? Contact me at dng@breitbart.com
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