It’s not surprising or new news that Facebook sells hate and division. It’s not even surprising they know this and aren’t doing much about it. The news here is that now we know they know and they know we know they know and now it’s official. Facebook actually did an internal study to find out just how bad they are, and when their suspicions were confirmed, they just nodded to each other and carried on with business as usual.

The only difference between Facebook and Fox News selling hate and false information is that Facebook stumbled upon it and Fox News built its entire business model around it. Fox News didn’t give Tucker Carlson, Sean Hannity, or Laura Ingraham shows and later go, “wha’aaaaat?” They’re not Stephanie Grisham who took five years to figure out Donald Trump was a vile and horrible person.

And in Fox News’ defense, they at least fired Diamond and Silk for spreading false information about Covid-19 but they still have a monetized Facebook page. Guess what they do with it.

Frances Haugen revealed herself on 60 minutes as the Facebook whistleblower. She is the former lead product manager on the company’s civic misinformation team and she leaked thousands of internal documents to The Wall Street Journal. She says she leaked the documents so that “no one can question that this is real.” I don’t think that’s going to be a problem…at least not among anyone who uses Facebook.

She told CBS’ Scott Pelley her lawyers have filed at least eight complaints with the Securities and Exchange Commission that point to discrepancies between Facebook’s internal research and the company’s external statements on issues like hate speech and mental health. She has compared Facebook to the tobacco companies. Both have knowingly lied to Congress and the public about how toxic their products are.

Haugen explained when it comes to public safety and profits, Facebook chose profits every time, which is what big tobacco did.

For example, look what happened on January 6. Facebook, along with Twitter, were used to strategize, organize, and plot out the insurrection to overturn the government. Twitter reacted and banned thousands of accounts, including Donald Trump. Facebook followed and ditched Trump…but thousands of similar hate groups remain. For another example, there are still people on Facebook stating the terrorist attack by white nationalists was just a protest and the Capitol Police who defended it are murderers for shooting terrorist Ashley Babbitt.

People who supported terrorists on the internet used to stay in the dark web. Now they’re out in the open.

Haugen claims one internal study suggested Facebook only took action on three to five percent of hate speech and less than one percent of violence and incitement content on Facebook. But if you post a cartoon criticizing the Taliban, you may get banned for three days. And then afterward, the algorithms are set to where not as many people see that particular cartoonist’s posts, the number of likes, comments, and shares for his cartoons go down, he gets fewer hits to his website which is monetized, cutting into his income, and he gets messages from people asking, “Hey…are you OK? I haven’t seen anything new from you in weeks” despite the fact he posts a new cartoon every…single…freaking…day.

I heard that happened to somebody.

Facebook had a bad Monday. Grrr, Mondays. They woke up to a 60 minutes exposé (I know, Andréa. I can’t make accent marks) and then they had a shutdown that lasted for several hours. You may have heard about it. It was like Facebook was in Facebook jail (I stole that from a comment on Facebook).

If you were a conspiracy theorist, you might believe Facebook’s outage was intentional to remind us just how much we hate/love Facebook. And they’re right. Look how many people on Facebook made posts about Facebook’s shutdown. I have one friend (to protect him, I will not tell you his name is J.P. Trostle) who swears he’ll never use Facebook again, but returned yesterday to give a Nelson Muntz Ha-Ha to Facebook for the shutdown.

It’s perfectly fine to criticize Facebook on Facebook. How else would they see it? It’s like AOC and her tax-the-rich dress worn at a $35,000-a-plate charity event. They’re not going to get the message if she only wears it in a barrio.

The Facebook whistleblower is testifying before the Senate as I write this. That means, nothing is going to happen. She’s testifying before people who have internal documents revealing trickle-down doesn’t work but keep voting for trickle-down. She’s testifying before people who were hiding under tables during the insurrection but still voted against impeaching Trump for instigating the insurrection. She’s testifying before the people who were hiding behind drapes and on the phone with Donald Trump screaming, “Please, call off your horde of white nationalist racist terrorist goons” to no avail, but still flew down to Mar-a-Lago for photo-ops with Donald Trump while groveling at his stinky feet. She’s testifying before people who were screaming during the attack, “Save me, Capitol Police officers…save me! Barricade that door! Protect me! I don’t wanna die! YAAAAAAGHHH!” and later voted against giving the Capitol Police officers medals and honoring them as heroes. If Congress goes after Mark Zuckerberg, all he has to do is put on a MAGA hat.

Fun fact: Republicans love Facebook just as much as you do. Nazis, Klansmen, Proud Boys, Oath Keepers, and New York City firefighters use it just as much as Black Lives Matter, Move On, and Leonardo DiCaprio.

Another fun fact: I will never stop laughing every time I see this video. This tells me Mark Zuckerger is the kind of boss that nobody who works for him can say something is a bad idea or when he looks like a moron. He needs to hire a sassy southern secretary, the type who can tell him, “Sugar, oh no. If you were going as someone who can relate to commoners, and loves something that’s not himself, you can kiss my grits ’cause that ain’t it.”

Creative license: The offices for Facebook and Fox News don’t really face each other. While Facebook’s headquarters is in California, they do have an office in New York City and it’s nowhere near Fox News, but they are both in Manhattan. Facebook is in lower Manhattan on Broadway between 8th and 9th street while Fox News is in midtown on 6th Avenue between 51st and 50th. I’m that kind of geek to know that and find it important.

Signed prints: The signed prints are just $40.00 each. Every cartoon on this site is available. You can pay through PayPal. If you don’t like PayPal, you can snail mail it to Clay Jones, P.O. Box 3721, Fredericksburg, VA 22402. I can mail the prints directly to you or if you’re purchasing as a gift, directly to the person you’re gifting.

Notes on my book, Tales From The Trumpster Fire: There are FIVE copies of my book in stock, which go for $45.00 each, signed. Also, I have copies of my first book from 1997, Knee-Deep in Mississippi available for $20.00.

Tip Jar: if you want to support the cartoonist, please send a donation through PayPal to clayjonz@gmail.com. You can also snail it to P.O. Box 9103, Fredericksburg, VA 22403.

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