Sacha Baron Cohen Blames Mark Zuckerberg, Others, for Jan 6 U.S. Capitol Attack
The Borat star says that social media gave Trump a venue to fan the flames of hate.
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Super star Sacha Baron Cohen knows who exactly is at fault with all of the recent political violence which has taken place in America, specifically the attack on the U.S. on January, 6. No surprises here, its Mark Zuckerberg. While Baron Cohn also slammed the other social media people, he singled out Zuckerberg in interviews with both Time magazine and the New York Times.
Sacha Baron Cohen, who is up for several Golden Globes awards this week for his 2020 hit movie Borat 2, spoke out on his disdain for and disgust with Mark Zuckerberg and others with Time magazine editor in chief Edward Felsenthal as part of the Time100 Talks series.
First, Sacha Baron Cohen blamed the big tech people for allowing the lie that the 2020 election was somehow “stolen” from Donald Trump to spread in the first place. “That lie was spread via Facebook, via YouTube, via Twitter,” said, adding that “the heads of these organizations knew very well that they were enabling this lie to become a mass movement, and that the end result would be violence.”
All of this means, in Baron Cohen’s opinion that the people in question knew that this would lead to violence as it did in the end. And he added that these people have usurped American democracy in some way saying that “They are unelected. They are white billionaires. Why is it that they should be deciding what happens with democracy?”
“In every other industry, you can be sued for the harm you cause,” Sacha Baron Cohen pointed out. “Publishers, as you know, can be sued for libel, people can be sued for defamation. I have been sued hundreds of times. In fact, I’m still being sued now by a very eminent judge”
But Sacha Baron Cohen is furious with the thought that Facebook has immunity from civil liability in these situations which have resulted in deaths. In addition to those killed in Washington on January 6, videos of violence against Jews and Muslims would go up on Facebook and Cohen asserted that this caused even more violence against minorities.
But it was Mark Zuckerberg who was the main focus of Sacha Baron Cohen’s wrath. On the founder of Facebook he said, “One man controls Facebook. It isn’t a board. It’s Mark Zuckerberg. And not only that. When Mark Zuckerberg passes away, the ultimate control of Facebook goes to his child. So this is the old system of emperors… He has decided internationally how 3 billion people get their information, and at a whim, he can shut off news to a country like Australia.”
In an interview with Kara Swisher who has a NY Times podcast called “Sway,” Baron Cohen continued to speak out against what he calls the silicon six. He acknowledged that racism and violence against minorities had been a problem in America before Donald Trump, but blamed Trump for making it worse and social media for allowing Trump’s vitriol to spread.
Sacha Baron Cohen recounted a time when he ran into someone who runs a social media company at a Hollywood party and asked why his company allowed Holocaust denial to spread on its service. He was disappointed with the answer and lamented that “these people” have what he described as “the power of emperors.”
“These people who marched on the capitol are not necessarily bad people, it’s the people who spread these lies on social media,” who are at fault, said Baron Cohn.
The actor, of course, would like to see Trump banned from all social media forever.
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