Facebook Struggling To Find Lobbyists As They Fight Regulation

A new report says that Facebook is on edge - for so many reasons - and they are desperately trying to find lobbyists who can get through to Democrats. But so far, they haven't been able to find anyone. They had an exceptionally cozy relationship with the Trump administration (in spite of Trump's tough talk about tech bias) but they haven't been able to create the same relationship with Democrats. Ring of Fire's Farron Cousins explains what's happening.

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*This transcript was generated by a third-party transcription software company, so please excuse any typos.

Facebook is basically having a bad couple of weeks here. First, you know, we had the whistleblower come out saying that Facebook essentially prioritizes the hateful, hurtful, dangerous rhetoric on their site because it generates more revenue. Then we of course had the Facebook papers that came out and echoed kind of the same thing, went a little bit further into it and actually exposed how the company and some of their other properties they own like Instagram, basically endangering children. So Facebook's having a tough go at it. And a new report came out saying that they're also having a tough time finding a Democratic lobbyist. Here's the way it works out for them. During the Trump administration, even though Republicans were railing all the time about the tyranny of big tech, they had a cozy relationship with the White House. Mark Zuckerberg on several different occasions was invited to the White House.

He showed up, had meetings in the oval office with Donald Trump himself and everything was cool, even though Trump publicly, err, Facebook. But he never did anything and Republicans never did anything. You know, Ted Cruz out there and moaning about Google while he's taken all this Google money. They never did anything because the money from big tech, the lobbyists from big tech were too sweet. But according to these new reports, Facebook is having a hard time finding a Democratic lobbyist to go out there and get the Democrats on their side. Right. They've got the Republicans and I know, I know that's got to eat up those Republican voters who, who all think Republican lawmakers are out there trying to take down the liberal big tech. It's the opposite, you. Republicans are the ones in the pocket of big tech. Facebook can't even find a Democratic lobbyist because nobody wants to go and take that job to try to convince Democrats to not regulate big tech companies, which is something they are considering doing.

So Democrats are actually trying to do something about this. Republicans don't want anything to change because much like their other social issues they love to talk about, if you fix the problem, they don't have anything to complain about. They don't have anything to energize their base with. But Facebook, again, lacking a lobbyist that can get through to the Democrats could be in trouble. And the more reports like this that we get, you know, the Facebook papers, the whistleblower, that's all going to bode very poorly for Facebook itself and only bolster the case that this company needs to be strictly regulated, as do the rest of the tech companies. And that's what we need to an extent. And when I say regulated, I mean they do need somebody looking over their shoulder to make sure there's not harmful content on the website and by harmful, I mean something that could lead to the death, violence against or outright physical harm to certain individuals. That needs to be regulated.

The crazy conspiracy theories posted by your ridiculous little uncle, you can't do anything about that. And I know it's dangerous, but that stuff stays because if you have the federal government coming in and telling Facebook, you have to take off the conspiracy theorists, that would be government censorship, and that is not allowed. You cannot do that. And another part that does need to be regulated as these companies basically acting as giant monopolies, squishing out competitors.