Joe Scarborough accuses Mark Zuckerberg and Facebook of ‘promoting’ extremism

‘He’s pushing people towards extremist sites that gun down and murder federal officials,’ says host

MSNBC‘s Joe Scarborough criticised Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg during his show on Wednesday, and claimed the social media site is “promoting” extremism.

Mr Scarborough, the host of Morning Joe, made the comments after his network reported on right-wing extremism featured on Facebook, following the arrest of Steven Carrillo, according to Mediaite.

Mr Carrillo, who is reportedly part of the Boogaloo Movement, was arrested on Wednesday morning, and charged with the murder of a federal security officer in California, during a George Floyd protest.

The Boogaloo Movement, is populated by far-right extremists, who call for a violent uprising and a second civil war in the US.

It was reported that Mr Carrillo wrote on a Facebook group on 28 May that the uprising is “on our coast now, this needs to be nationwide.”

Before Mr Scarborough’s show, NBC's Ben Collins reported said that Facebook’s algorithms can lead users to extreme groups.

“If you’re in a libertarian group on Facebook, for example, or a Tea Party group or just like weaponry, guns and ammo stuff, they might in the last three months have driven you to a Boogaloo page,” Mr Collins said.

After hearing about the Boogaloo Movement’s use of Facebook groups to spread their message, Mr Scarborough took aim at Mr Zuckerberg and the content that is allowed and promoted on the site.

“Mark Zuckerberg is promoting the extremism, because Mark Zuckerberg is actually — his site, the Zuckerberg site, has actually set up! Set up! Like, ad promotions that actually push people towards extremist sites that kill federal officers!” the host claimed.

“And Mark Zuckerberg becomes a billionaire!” Mr Scarborough added. “How many times over? Because he’s pushing people towards extremist sites that gun down and murder federal officials.”

Over the last few years, there have been growing concerns that Facebook allows extremism and misinformation to spread, as it does very little to censor content on the site.

In May, Snapchat took the decision to stop promoting president Donald Trump’s tweets after Twitter flagged a controversial post, for “inciting violence.”

The post was also shared by the president to his Facebook page, but Mr Zuckerberg decided against flagging or taking down the controversial status, despite staff walkouts against the decision.

Mr Zuckerberg said: “I know many people are upset that we’ve left the President’s posts up, but our position is that we should enable as much expression as possible unless it will cause imminent risk of specific harms or dangers spelled out in clear policies.”

Scrutiny of Facebook’s content was highest in the aftermath of the 2016 presidential election, where it was claimed that Russia spread misinformation on the site, to help Donald Trump become president.

“When Sheryl Sandberg found out that Mark Zuckerberg’s website was being used by foreign powers to interfere in the 2016 election, what did she do? She got angry at the Mark Zuckerberg employee that came to her and came to the board and warned them that American democracy was at risk,” Mr Scarborough said.

“Mark Zuckerberg said, he doesn’t care that people use his site to lie. He doesn’t care that they use their site,” the host added.

The Independent has contacted Facebook for comment.