Published 16:59 IST, January 7th 2020
British comedian calls Zuckerberg ‘child spreading Nazi propaganda’
British actor-comedian Sacha Baron Cohen was introducing a satire film ‘Jojo Rabbit’, at the Golden Globe Awards, about a member of a Nazi youth group.
British actor-comedian Sacha Baron Cohen tore into Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg at the Golden Globe awards with a subtle jibe at the latter’s policy for his social media platforms. Baron, nominated for the leading role in a mini-series, was introducing a satire film Jojo Rabbit about a member of a Nazi youth group who does propaganda work.
“The hero of this next movie is a naive, misguided child who spreads Nazi propaganda and only has imaginary friends. His name is Mark Zuckerberg,” said Cohen followed by laughs from the audience.
The comedian then cleverly apologised for the “mistake” and said he somehow got confused with another movie. “Sorry, sorry. This is an old intro for The Social Network. I’m actually talking about Jojo Rabbit. It’s nominated for two Golden Globes and it’s directed by its star, the brilliant and groundbreaking Taika Waititi,” he added.
'Greatest propaganda machine in history'
This is not the first time that Cohen has targeted Zuckerberg for carrying out “propaganda”. During the Anti-Defamation League’s ‘Never is Now’ summit in November, the 48-year-old actor lambasted Facebook as the “greatest propaganda machine in history”. “If Facebook were around in the 1930s, it would have allowed Hitler to post 30-second ads on his ‘solution’ to the ‘Jewish problem',” said Cohen while speaking at the summit on antisemitism and hate.
Zuckerberg has been facing the wrath of civil society and political leaders for his company’s advertisement policy. Facebook CEO has been adamant on not filtering out political advertisements that carry fake news while Twitter stopped accepting political advertisements, starting from November 22.
Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey, in a series of tweets, said that internet advertising is incredibly powerful and very effective for commercial advertisers, but similar power brings significant risks to politics, where it can be used to influence votes to affect the lives of millions. “Internet political ads present entirely new challenges to civic discourse: machine learning-based optimization of messaging and micro-targeting, unchecked misleading information, and deep fakes. All at increasing velocity, sophistication, and overwhelming scale,” tweeted Dorsey while making the announcement.
Updated 16:59 IST, January 7th 2020