Morning Joe host Joe Scarborough unleashed a fiery tirade at Facebook and its CEO Mark Zuckerberg on Wednesday, raging at the tech giant for promoting “extremism” in the wake of an anti-government “boogaloo” extremist charged with killing two California law-enforcement officers.
In the segment prior to Scarborough’s rant, NBC News (and former Daily Beast) reporter Ben Collins noted that Steven Carrillo—who was just charged the with the murder of federal officer Dave Patrick Underwood—was in a far-right boogaloo group on Facebook. Collins went on to explain that Carrillo apparently used the cover of a George Floyd protest in Oakland to kill Underwood and shot another officer. He then allegedly killed a cop eight days later.
“He’s talking about the protesters there, the protesters with which he doesn’t necessarily agree,” the NBC reporter said, pointing to a Facebook post of Carrillo’s. “He just wants to start some unrest so it can kick off some sort of civil war or race war.”
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Collins also said that Facebook helps drive online extremism with its recommendation algorithms, noting that if a user is in a “tea party group” or a group for “guns and ammo stuff,” that user could eventually be steered to a boogaloo page.
Coming out of a commercial break, Scarborough lashed out at Zuckerberg and COO Sheryl Sandberg for allowing these groups to flourish on Facebook, accusing them of advancing radicalization.
“Mark Zuckerberg is promoting the extremism, because Mark Zuckerberg is actually—his site, the Zuckerberg site, has actually set up! Set up! Like, ad promotions that actually push people towards extremist sites that kill federal officers!” Scarborough yelled. “And Mark Zuckerberg becomes a billionaire!”
At this point shouting at the top of his lungs, Scarborough claimed that Zuckerberg’s become a billionaire many times over because “he’s pushing people towards extremist sites that gun down and murder federal officials.”
“And when Sheryl Sandberg found out that Mark Zuckerberg’s website was being used by foreign powers to interfere in the 2016 election, what did she do? She got angry at the Mark Zuckerberg employee that came to her and came to the board and warned them that American democracy was at risk,” he angrily continued. “Mark Zuckerberg said he doesn’t care that people use his site to lie!”
Scarborough would continue to rage for a few more minutes, going after Zuckerberg for keeping extremist pages on his platform before concluding his over-the-top monologue by shouting. “He is lying to you. He is lying to himself. He is lying to the American people!”
