Mark Zuckerberg, CEO of Facebook, came before the House of Representatives on Wednesday, Oct. 23, to be questioned about a variety of scandals the tech giant has faced, including the spread of misinformation through political ads. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez confronted the tech giant for his “complete lack of fact-checking on political advertisements,” to which Zuckerberg responded with a half-answer, saying that he believes “lying is bad,” but making no promises to change the company’s policies.

This policy has been a major talking point since the Trump re-election campaign ran an ad on Facebook claiming blatantly false things about Democratic candidate Joe Biden. This was made even more of a talking point when Elizabeth Warren ran a purposely false advertisement on the platform that read, “Breaking news: Mark Zuckerberg and Facebook just endorsed Donald Trump for re-election. You’re probably shocked, and you might be thinking, ‘how could this possibly be true?’ Well it’s not. (Sorry.) But what Zuckerberg *has* done is given Donald Trump free rein to lie on his platform – and then to pay Facebook gobs of money to push out their lies to American voters.”

Warren and other progressive Democrats believe that tech giants like Facebook “have too much power – too much power over our economy, our society and our democracy,” as said in a post on Medium, and that a breakup of these companies is the solution. She also criticized the companies for “bulldozing competition” and selling users’ private information. 

Zuckerberg, on the other hand, has said that “breaking up these companies … is not actually going to solve the issues. And, you know, it doesn’t make election interference less likely. It makes it more likely because now the companies can’t coordinate and work together.”

Facebook was not the only company to do nothing about dishonest ads. Twitter, YouTube and Fox also refused to pull the dishonest advertisement.

Zuckerberg and other tech CEOs have been put into an awkward situation by this. These companies have long held a thin veil of centrism, but with increasing polarization, that mask is slipping and their right-wing bias is coming out. 

Zuckerberg has not been shy with his conservative leaning. Recently he has been meeting with conservative leaders and pundits in closed, off-the-record meetings. This has come after Warren suggested a new wave of trust busting, including the breakup of Zuckerberg’s billion-dollar company.

Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey had a similar controversy in response to calls to ban white nationalists on Twitter in the wake of increasing domestic terrorism. The request to ban white nationalists in the way the company banned ISIS accounts was met with hesitancy, with Dorsey admitting that it would also result in the banning of many right-wing politicians.

Big tech would rather facilitate terrorism and misinformation than risk alienating the Republican politicians that stand between them and the progressive movement, breaking their chokehold on the media industry.

As right-wing politicians spread blatant lies and white nationalist language, the left calls for reform that could destroy these tech companies. Tech CEOs will have to decide between honesty or continued wealth and white nationalist rhetoric, and so far, Dorsey and Zuckerberg are siding with the right.

Robert Kinnaird is a junior double-major in journalism and global studies, and the Multimedia Editor for The Hofstra Chronicle.