Mark Zuckerberg cutouts take over US Capitol lawn
WASHINGTON - Demonstrators came to nation's capital to protest against Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg as he was grilled by Senate lawmakers for about five hours Tuesday.
Dozens of cutouts of Zuckerberg's likeness with the caption that read "fix fakebook" were placed on the lawn outside of the U.S. Capitol as protesters expressed their frustration with Zuckerberg and his company for allowing fake information and fake ads to circulate across Facebook.
"Behind me is sort of sea of fake Mark Zuckerbergs and it's really meant to represent the sea of fake bots, trolls, accounts that has flooded fake news in the last several years and is threatening our democracy," said Nell Greenberg, campaign director for Avaaz, the activist group responsible for the Zuckerberg cutouts.
The group is calling on the Facebook co-founder to ban all fake accounts that are spreading disinformation on the social media platform.
"Our members around the world are very clearly saying that sorry is not enough and Facebook has been addressing this problem," said Greenberg. "But the real issue is that they are doing it in a way that is too small, too slow and too secretive."
Zuckerberg testified in a joint hearing held by the Senate Judiciary and Commerce committees following a privacy scandal in which political data-mining firm Cambridge Analytica improperly gained data on as much as 87 million people.
Zuckerberg is scheduled to testify in front of a House committee hearing on Wednesday.