‘Full of itself’: Facebook using Russia as excuse to censor information online, says Steve Malzberg

Published time: 16 Aug, 2018 15:02Edited time: 16 Aug, 2018 15:32

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Facebook is using false claims against Russia and its supposed "bots" and "trolls" as justification to shut down pages of news outlets it doesn’t agree with, conservative commentator Steve Malzberg told RT’s "Watching the Hawks."

Speaking just days after Facebook decided to shut down a page of the Latin American channel Telesur, which it later restored with little explanation as to why it was taken down in the first place, and the pages of Venezuelanalysis.com and Haitianalysis.blogspot.com, Malzberg said the social network is using Russia as a convenient excuse for its actions.

“I think they're using Russia now and the supposed bots and fake news and… the trolls and [saying] ‘they [Russians] want to sow discord in the United states and they're responsible for this and they're responsible for that.’ They're using that as an excuse now by saying ‘well we can't have more of that’ – even though ‘that’ is insane.”

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Malzberg went on to say that Facebook has “become full of itself, with the algorithms, with the clamping down and putting people in Facebook prison and their newfound responsibility to make sure that only real news is presented and decide what's proper journalism,”adding, “I mean, who are they?”

He believes people will soon find themselves in “big trouble” because of these recent developments.

“We're at a turning point right now, a very important point in the history of news and information and if we allow Facebook and the others [Google, YouTube, Twitter] to threaten existing publishers of news and deliverers of news and really start censoring and deciding what's fit for America to see and hear, we're going to be in big trouble.”

READ MORE: Five examples that show internet censorship is as much a threat to the left as the right

Several controversial US right-wing groups and commentators have been targeted by Facebook’s latest ban spree, including InfoWars director Alex Jones, who was later blocked by Apple, YouTube, and Twitter.