Wednesday, July 10, 2019

Mark Zuckerberg brags that Facebook blocked pro-life ads ahead of Ireland's vote. Bet he didn't block pro abortion ads!


'We ended up not allowing the ads'

Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg boasted last month about his company's decision not to allow pro-life ads from American groups to run in Ireland ahead of the country's referendum vote on abortion last year. 

What are the details?

Speaking at the Aspen Ideas Festival in June, Zuckerberg argued that individual countries should set up laws for policing which type of advertising may be allowed on social media platforms, rather than the private firms themselves, The Aspen Times reported.
To make his point, Zuckerberg told the story of how his company approached the Irish government to report that American pro-life advocates were trying to influence Ireland's May 2018 election. 
The CEO explained, "Leading up to that referendum, a bunch of pro-life American groups advertised...to try to influence public opinion there. And we went to the Irish and asked folks there, 'Well, how do you want us to handle this? You have no laws on the books that are relevant for whether we should be allowing this kind of speech in your election, and really this doesn't feel like the kind of thing that a private company should be making a decision on.'"

Zuckerberg continued, "Their response at the time was, ya know, 'We don't currently have a law, so you need to make whatever decision you want to make.' We ended up not allowing the ads."
Ultimately, Irish voters decided to lift the country's abortion ban.

Anything else?

Lila Rose, pro-life activist and founder of LiveAction, posted a clip Monday of Zuckerberg's remarks on Twitter, and pointed out a number of other instances of political bias by leaders at Facebook and Twitter regarding abortion.

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