Sen. Marsha Blackburn Called Out for Hypocrisy After Asking Google CEO if Employee Who Criticized Her Still Works There: Isn’t That ‘Cancel Culture?’
Senator Marsha Blackburn (R-TN) is under fire for asking Google CEO Sundar Pichai if an employee who criticized her still works at the company — an especially questionable remark considering she was taking part in a Senate hearing on the freedom of speech.
Ignoring her past dedication to defeating the “cancel culture mob,” Blackburn asked Pichai whether Blake Lemoine, a senior software engineer and artificial intelligence researcher, still has a job at Google.
“He has had very unkind things to say about me and I was just wondering if you all had still kept him working there,” she said.
Pichai responded by revealing that he did not know whether or not Lemoine still worked at the company. Blackburn then proceeded to fault Pichai for censoring far-right news website Breitbart.
Viewers of the hearing were quick to point out Blackburn’s hypocrisy:
Marsha Blackburn still working hard to win the title of worst senator in America. https://t.co/SKDTODfx1B
— James Surowiecki (@JamesSurowiecki) October 28, 2020
Senator Marsha Blackburn: Cancel culture is an absolute scourge. We must defeat it.
Also Senator Marsha Blackburn: Hey Mr. CEO of company I oversee, is that random employee who said unkind things about me still with your company? pic.twitter.com/5cYdi8bXay— Don Moynihan (@donmoyn) October 28, 2020
To be fair, Marsha Blackburn has said a lot of unkind things about Democrats and she’s still working in the Senate… so… https://t.co/LI48snUL3L
— Sarah Burris (@SarahBurris) October 28, 2020
The person she’s trying to get fired is a self-identified Republican conservative who criticized Blackburn on an internal mailing list at Google. State officials persecuting people for private speech is not considered “cancel culture” or an attack on free speech by Republicans. https://t.co/SpLS3FRZ6Y
— Anil Dash ? Election Is a Season, Not a Night ? (@anildash) October 28, 2020
This is cancel culture.
Blackburn doesn’t think you should be able to work at Google if you don’t like her reactionary politics. https://t.co/NAOgK3GcpL
— Judd Legum (@JuddLegum) October 28, 2020
is this that cancel culture people are always talking about https://t.co/cjWUGMmAvY
— creppy andrea grimes (@andreagrimes) October 28, 2020
This is clownish behavior and what about cancel culture?!? https://t.co/ZR1a1DpKpR
— Bakari Sellers (@Bakari_Sellers) October 28, 2020
Amazingly this was at the hearing about the need for technology companies to adopt a broad view of the social value of free speech https://t.co/RQrKDqI173
— Matthew Yglesias (@mattyglesias) October 28, 2020
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