In a New York Times interview with the paper’s editorial board, Presidential candidate Joe Biden said that he wasn’t a fan of Facebook or its CEO Mark Zuckerberg, according to a report by Cnet.
The paper asked Biden about a recent false ad that ran on Facebook about how he blackmailed Ukrainian officials.
“I’ve never been a fan of Facebook, as you probably know,” Biden said. “I’ve never been a big Zuckerberg fan. I think he’s a real problem.”
Biden went on to say that Zuckerberg “knows better.”
“And you know, from my perspective, I’ve been in the view that not only should we be worrying about the concentration of power, we should be worried about the lack of privacy and them being exempt,” he added.
Biden also shared that he thought Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act, which states that companies aren’t liable for what their users post, “should … immediately should be revoked.”
Many politicians on Capitol Hill have expressed dismay at Section 230; Sen. Josh Hawley introduced a bill last year to get rid of the immunity that companies enjoy, unless they submit to an audit by an outside party. Supporters of Section 230 say that it aids in online free speech.
“It should be revoked because it is not merely an internet company,” Biden said. “It is propagating falsehoods they know to be false, and we should be setting standards not unlike [what] the Europeans are doing relative to privacy.”
Biden made the comparison to the paper, saying that it couldn’t simply print lies without consequences.
In regards to a question about whether Facebook should face criminal repercussions for what it has done with content, Biden said that Zuckerberg “should be submitted to civil liability and his company to civil liability, just like you would be here at The New York Times.”
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