Elizabeth Warren bared her teeth after Mark Zuckerberg told her that she will have to “go to the mat and fight,” if she wants to curb the power of big tech companies after being elected.
Facebook will sue the government if Elizabeth Warren becomes president and carries out her pledge to break up large tech companies, CEO Mark Zuckerberg said in an audio recording leaked to The Verge, saying it would “suck” to fight your own government in court.
“At the end of the day, if someone’s going to try to threaten something that existential,” said Zuckerberg, “you go to the mat and you fight.”
In response to leaked remarks that Zuckerberg made during two meetings with staffers in July, Warren took to Twitter on Oct. 1 to respond.
“What would really ‘suck’ is if we don’t fix a corrupt system that lets giant companies like Facebook engage in illegal anti-competitive practices, stomp on consumer privacy rights, and repeatedly fumble their responsibility to protect our democracy.”
What would really “suck” is if we don’t fix a corrupt system that lets giant companies like Facebook engage in illegal anticompetitive practices, stomp on consumer privacy rights, and repeatedly fumble their responsibility to protect our democracy. https://t.co/rI0v55KKAi
— Elizabeth Warren (@ewarren) October 1, 2019
Warren continued later that day saying: “Facebook is doing pretty well right now. They’ve acquired potential competitors WhatsApp and Instagram. More than 85% of all social networking traffic goes through sites owned or operated by Facebook. They’ve got a lot of power—and face little competition or accountability.”
Zuckerberg himself said Facebook is “more like a government than a traditional company.” They’ve bulldozed competition, used our private information for profit, undermined our democracy, and tilted the playing field against everyone else. https://t.co/jqQ0iLbfyz
— Elizabeth Warren (@ewarren) October 1, 2019
Warren added: “Zuckerberg himself said Facebook is ‘more like a government than a traditional company.’ They’ve bulldozed competition, used our private information for profit, undermined our democracy, and tilted the playing field against everyone else.”
Zuckerberg’s candid remarks came during a two-hour question and answer session with employees in July according to The Verge, as he addressed Warren’s proposals to clip the wings of the big tech companies such as Google, Amazon, and Facebook, which swallow up fledgling competition through acquisitions and mergers.
Zuckerberg said that breaking up the companies won’t solve the problem.
“It doesn’t make election interference less likely. It makes it more likely because now the companies can’t coordinate and work together.”
Linking to the full transcript, he wrote, “Even though it was meant to be internal rather than public, now that it’s out there, you can check it out if you’re interested in seeing an unfiltered version of what I’m thinking and telling employees.”
Epoch Times reporter Simon Veazey contributed to this report
