Rep. Matt Gaetz, R-Fl., sent a criminal referral to Attorney General Bill Barr on Monday, asking him to investigate Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg for misleading Congress, Project Veritas reported.
Zuckerberg claimed during an April 2018 Senate testimony that Facebook does not have any bias in its treatment of conservative people or ideas. He spoke in front of the Senate Judiciary Committee and the Senate Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee.
Yet, Project Veritas has learned from former Facebook “content moderators” that the technology company does, in fact, engage in purposeful bias against conservative content.
“As a member of this body, I question Mr. Zuckerberg’s veracity, and challenge his
willingness to cooperate with our oversight authority, diverting congressional
resources during time-sensitive investigations, and materially impeding our
work,” Gaetz wrote in a letter released on July 27.
Former Facebook employees Zach McElroy and Ryan Hartwig both said in June that Facebook is biased against conservatives.
“I would say, given what I’ve seen, I think that there is inherent bias and inherent bias against conservatives in what is allowed to be said about conservatives,” McElroy said.
He said he would volunteer to detail his understanding of Facebook’s policies in a congressional hearing.
McElroy said Facebook’s algorithms pull conservative and Republican content for additional review by Facebook employees.
“I saw a stark contrast between Republicans versus Democrats in the queue,” said McElroy. “I saw upwards of 75-to-80 percent of the posts in that queue were from Republican pages, politicians, journalists and pages that supported the president or supported conservatives.”
Gaetz said Zuckerberg may have violated federal laws against making falsement statements to Congress. The laws carry a prison sentence of up to five years.
Project Veritas CEO James O’Keefe said Barr should immediately begin investigating Zuckerberg’s statements, since it directly relates to the integrity of the 2020 elections.
“If someone—anyone—lies to a lawmaker, he or she is deliberately manipulating the legislative process,” he said. “I urge DOJ to act quickly and investigate Mark Zuckerberg before Americans vote in November.”
