Mark Zuckerberg appeared to stumble when confronted with tough questioning by congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, who asked the Facebook CEO if a right-wing news outlet known for its ties to white supremacist groups is an appropriate fact-checking group to help oversee the social media giant's content.
Ms Ocasio-Cortez confronted Mr Zuckerberg during congressional testimony on Wednesday, where the CEO was due to discuss a cryptocurrency favoured by his company. But the Democrat instead chose to grill him about Facebook's decision not to fact check political advertisements, even in cases where messages posted by politicians are clearly wrong.
She also asked about Mr Zuckerberg's previous admission that he dines regularly with conservatives and right-wing personalities, which he said is part of his strategy to ensure he hears a diverse set of opinions.
"Can you explain why you have named the Daily Caller, a publication well documented with ties to white supremacists as an official fact checker for Facebook?" Ms Ocasio-Cortez asked.
Mr Zuckerberg replied that Facebook does not itself appoint fact checkers on its platform, and instead relies on the International Fact Checking Network (IFCN), a fact checking organisation established by the journalism integrity group Poynter.
"You would say that white supremacist tied publications meet a rigorous standard for fact checking?" Ms Ocasio-Cortez responded.
At this point, Mr Zuckerberg turned his head away and stared ahead for a moment, appearing to look for some form of guidance.
He then responded: "Congresswoman I would say that we're not the ones assessing that standard, the International Fact Checking Network is the one setting that standard.
The Independent has reached out to IFCN for comment and clarification.
During her five minutes, Ms Ocasio-Cortez also grilled the Facebook CEO on his company's recent declaration that politicians who post political ads with lies would not be fact checks. That decision prompted outrage among politicians, including by leading Democratic presidential contender Elizabeth Warren, who responded by having her campaign post an intentionally false advert to prove the point. Ms Warren has notably called for the breakup of big tech companies like Facebook.
"Could I pay to to target predominantly black zip codes and pay to advertise to them the incorrect election date?" Ms Ocasio-Cortez said.
"No, congresswoman, you couldn't," Mr Zuckerberg replied, before beginning an explanation about newsworthiness that Ms Ocasio-Cortez cut short.
"But you said you're not going to fact check my ads," she replied.
"If anyone, including a politician is saying things that can cause, that is calling for violence or could risk imminent physical hard or voter or census suppression ... we will take that content down," he said.
She responded asking that there are, then, certain circumstances.
"Could I run ads targeting Republicans in primaries saying that they voted for the Green New Deal?" she then asked.
Mr Zuckerberg then said he doesn't know the answer "off the top of my head", but that he think she could "probably" run those adverts.
