Jesse Watters Defends Facebook and Says ‘The Real Root of All Evil’ Is ‘The Legacy Media’

 

Fox News’ Jesse Watters defended Facebook Monday in response to stunning revelations from Facebook whistleblower Frences Haugen.

Watters questioned her claim that Facebook is “tearing societies apart” and causing ethnic violence.

He responded to this by bringing up all the war and ethnic cleansing that happened before Facebook was around. “Last century, what did we have? The Russian civil war, World War I, World War II, multiple ethnic cleansings over almost every continent. There was no Facebook then!”

In the 60 Minutes interview, Haugen said, “The version of Facebook that exists today is tearing our societies apart and causing ethnic violence around the world.”

The narration from Scott Pelley pointed out the context of that claim, namely that Facebook admitted in 2018 the site was used “to foment division and incite offline violence” in Myanmar. As the New York Times reported weeks earlier, Myanmar military officials used Facebook as “a tool for ethnic cleansing.”

“2021 we sit on our couches and we complain. That’s as tough as it gets now,” Watters continued.

He proceeded to defend Facebook and say the real problem is the media:

I wouldn’t all of a sudden say Facebook is the root of all evil. The real root of all evil is people like CBS News executives who then point the finger at Facebook, while it’s them, the legacy media, that’s actually tearing this country apart. All Facebook is doing is letting people interact and talk about all these evil things the regular media is doing, like suppressing news, putting out fake news, racial hoaxes, all that kind of stuff. Those are the real villains.

Harold Ford Jr. made a point of bringing up the concerning revelations about the toxicity of Instagram for teenage girls.

Watter added, “I’m with you on the children stuff. It’s the stuff she was blaming all the political violence on Facebook for.”

You can watch above, via Fox News.

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Josh Feldman is a Senior Editor at Mediaite. Email him here: josh@mediaite.com Follow him on Twitter: @feldmaniac