WATCH: Sen. Hawley RIPS Meta Prioritizing Censorship, Not Protecting Girls

November 8th, 2023 3:32 PM

Sen. Josh Hawley (R-MO) slammed Big Tech giant Meta for having its priorities totally out of whack, just to maintain its obsession with censoring free speech as its primary objective.

Hawley went on Fox News’ The Ingraham Angle Tuesday to blast censorship giant Meta for putting more resources into executing government-directed censorship than into protecting young girls from online exploitation. While there’s evidence that nearly 30 percent of young teen girls have been propositioned within approximately the last two weeks on Meta-owned Instagram, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg ignored the shocking data, Hawley stated. “It’s absolutely unbelievable,” the senator said, insisting, “people are running pedophile rings on Instagram.” Zuckerberg poured effort into censoring Americans’ free speech on COVID-19, the Hunter Biden laptop scandal, and dozens of other leftist boilerplate issues, however.

“Are we actually going to see some bipartisan agreement on fixing this, for the sake of the kids?” asked Fox News host Laura Ingraham. “Well, if we can’t agree on this, I don’t know what we can agree on,” Hawley said. “This ought to be easy.” He cited expert testimony from Meta whistleblower Arturo Bejar at a Tuesday Congressional hearing. “This whistleblower today said that he presented evidence that one in eight girls—and when I say girls, I mean kids, between the ages of 13 and 15, so we’re talking about young girls now—one in eight [girls] on Instagram in the last seven days has been propositioned sexually.”

The numbers are even more disturbing if the time window is expanded slightly, Hawley explained. “Almost 30 percent of girls between 13 and 15 have been propositioned in the last two weeks or more.”  The senator added, “It’s absolutely unbelievable, he presented those numbers to Mark Zuckerberg, and what did Mark Zuckerberg do? Nothing. Didn’t even reply.”

The Meta CEO had a very different sense of urgency when it came to crushing free speech, as Hawley noted. Zuckerberg found the time and plenty of resources to “work with the Biden administration to censor posts on COVID[-19] vaccine efficacy. Or, if you want to organize your school board and ask about what are your kids being taught, oh no, no, no, then your posts get taken down,” Hawley pointed out. “But meanwhile people are running pedophile rings on Instagram.” Anti-free speech zealot Zuckerberg certainly appears to have his priorities all wrong.

Conservatives are under attack. Contact your representatives and demand government agencies and Big Tech be held to account to mirror the First Amendment while providing transparency, clarity on so-called hate speech and equal footing for conservatives. If you have been censored, contact us at the Media Research Center contact form, and help us hold Big Tech accountable.