Today’s hearing with Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg has been pretty poor, on the whole, so far—the average age of the senators questioning Zuckerberg appears to be around 140 and many of them seem not to understand the concepts underpinning the questions they’re asking—but our normal boy, Senator Ted Cruz, still managed to ask the absolute worst question of the entire hearing so far.
When his time for questioning the boy wonder came around, Cruz said (emphasis mine):
Mr. Zuckerberg, I would say that there are a great many Americans who I think are deeply concerned that Facebook and other tech companies are engaged in a pervasive pattern of bias and political censorship. There have been numerous instances with Facebook, in May of 2016, Gizmodo reported that Facebook had routinely suppressed conservative stories from trending news, including stories about CPAC, including stories about Mitt Romney, including the Lois Lerner IRS scandal, including stories about Glenn Beck. In addition to that, Facebook initially shut down the Chick-fil-A Appreciation Day page, has blocked a post of a Fox News reporter, has blocked over two dozen Catholic pages and most recently blocked Trump supporters Diamond and Silk’s page with 1.2 million Facebook followers after determining their content and brand were, quote, ‘unsafe to the community.’ To a great many Americans that appears to be a pervasive pattern of political bias. Do you agree with that assessment?
That’s right, Cruz had five precious minutes to ask the tech world’s most powerful eight-year-old villain about how Facebook uses your data and he chose to ask a question straight from the bowels of right-wing conspiracy madness. Chick-fil-A Appreciation Day and Diamond and Silk, the new free speech martyrs, joining Kevin Williamson and Bret Stephens in the pantheon of brave soldiers silenced by liberals.
Despite his fascinating line of questioning, Cruz remains a lonely soul: