Social media titans are probably making Nazi Propaganda Minister Joseph Goebbels blush, former federal prosecutor Jim Trusty told Newsmax on Tuesday.
Trusty, who is also a former attorney for Donald Trump, made the comment while reacting to Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg's admission that senior officials in the Biden administration pressured his social media company to censor COVID-19 content during the pandemic and that it was wrong for his platforms to suppress news coverage of the Hunter Biden laptop ahead of the 2020 election.
Appearing on "Newsline," Trusty said, "You look at it from a historic perspective, these social media titans are probably making Joseph Goebbels blush.
"They are in a position where they control the flow of information — especially to the younger generation that is not watching TV or even own a TV. And they are affecting elections.
"When you talk about affecting elections, we need congressional oversight. We need people to ask the hard questions, and to follow up," which he said means "these hugely profitable titans of social media, who are given immunity on the understanding that there would be a free market of ideas.
"That is the price of immunity is that you don't try to moderate the content, and you are protected for not doing so."
But Trusty said "it is overdue to say, 'Fish or cut bait.'
"You don't get the benefit of suppressing speech ... and also get the immunity we have given."
Trusty also speculated on why, after all these years, Zuckerberg is admitting this is what happened.
"Maybe he is reading the tea leaves and thinking he is going to be very unpopular with Congress if he denies something that is really so fundamentally obvious," he said.
"This is the new age of disinformation, where we have people in government working with the big chairs of the social media platforms and figuring out ways to affect elections. It was really a very blatant exercise" in trying to give favorable press to Joe Biden in order to get him elected president.
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Brian Freeman ✉
Brian Freeman, a Newsmax writer based in Israel, has more than three decades writing and editing about culture and politics for newspapers, online and television.
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