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a14 people & arts
Monday 18 January 2021
AP Exclusive: Selena Gomez: Big Tech ‘cashing in from evil’

By AMANDA LEE MYERS election, confirming that
Associated Press Joe Biden has been law-
LOS ANGELES (AP) — Hours fully elected, and saying
after an angry mob of it was taking enforcement
Trump supporters took con- action against militarized
trol of the U.S. Capitol in a social movements like QA-
violent insurrection, Selena non. While the changes
Gomez laid much of the are positive, they’re “just
blame at the feet of Big a drop in the bucket,” said
Tech. “Today is the result of Jeff Orlowski, director of
allowing people with hate Netflix’s “The Social Dilem-
in their hearts to use plat- ma,” a popular 2020 film
forms that should be used that showed how Silicon
to bring people together Valley’s pursuit of profit
and allow people to build could pose an existential
community,” tweeted threat to U.S. democracy.
the singer/actor. “Face- Voices like Gomez’s can
book, Instagram, Twitter, be a huge help to get the
Google, Mark Zuckerberg, message across, consider-
Sheryl Sandberg, Jack ing her hundreds of millions
Dorsey, Sundar Pichai, Su- of followers, Orlowski said.
san Wojcicki — you have “Think of the advertising
all failed the American In this Jan 11, 2020 file photo, Selena Gomez attends the premiere of “Dolittle” in Los Angeles. revenue from every Selena
people today, and I hope Gomez will put her quarantine cooking skills on display in a 10-episode series for the upcoming Gomez post. Think of the
you’re going to fix things streaming service HBO Max. Associated Press advertising revenue from
moving forward.” every Donald Trump post,
It’s just the latest effort by for comment. each other, plan what moved millions of posts for the advertising revenue
the 28-year-old Gomez to Gomez is among a growing they’re going to do next,’” hate speech, and bans ads from every post from The
draw attention to the dan- number of celebrities using said Imran Ahmed, CEO that are divisive, inflamma- Rock or whoever,” he said.
ger of internet companies their platforms to call out of the Center for Counter- tory, or discourage people “Those people are literally
critics say have profited social media, including Sa- ing Digital Hate, which has from voting. She didn’t di- generating millions of dol-
from misinformation and cha Baron Cohen, Leonar- helped educate Gomez rectly address the advertis- lars for these companies ...
hate on their platforms. Go- do DiCaprio, Jennifer Law- about online misinforma- ing examples Gomez point- The top 20 people on Ins-
mez has been calling out rence, Kerry Washington, tion. ed to. tagram have probably the
Big Tech for months — pub- and Kim Kardashian West. In emails shared exclusively “It’s beating around the most influence over Mark
licly on the very platforms Gomez became passion- with the AP, Gomez told bush and saying what peo- and Sheryl compared to
she’s fighting and privately ate about the issue in 2017 Sandberg in September ple want to hear,” Gomez anybody else until finally
in conversations with Silicon when a 12-year-old com- that “a search for a militia said about her interac- Congress as a whole gets
Valley’s big hitters. mented on one of her Ins- group ‘Three Percenters’ tions with Sandberg and enough momentum and
In an exclusive interview tagram posts: “Go kill your- results in dozens of pages, Google, among others. “I energy to put some legisla-
with The Associated Press self.” groups and videos focused think at this point we’ve all tion together.”
on Jan. 6, just hours before “That was my tipping on people hoping and pre- learned that words don’t Orlowski and Ahmed both
the Capitol riot, Gomez point,” she said. “I couldn’t paring for civil war, and match up unless the action said they’re looking to
said she’s been frustrated handle what I was seeing.” there are dozens of groups is going to happen.” Biden’s administration for
by what she views as the Social media experts have titled ‘white lives matter’ Following the violence at reforms, including a mea-
companies’ lackluster re- argued that companies that are full of hate and lies the U.S. Capitol, tech com- sure that would hold so-
sponse. She said they have like Facebook and Twitter that might lead to people panies made some of their cial media companies
to “stop doing the bare played a direct role in the being hurt or, even worse, biggest changes to date. accountable for the posts
minimum.” Capitol insurrection both killed.” Facebook, Instagram, Twit- they allow, an effort that
“It isn’t about me versus by allowing plans for the That’s even though Face- ter and other platforms has gained momentum
you, one political party ver- uprising to be made on book banned U.S.-based banned President Donald and drawn bipartisan sup-
sus another. This is about their platforms and through militia groups from its ser- Trump, drawing criticism port. Meanwhile, Gomez
truth versus lies and Face- algorithms that allow dan- vice in August. from some including the vows to keep fighting as
book, Instagram and big gerous conspiracy theories In the same email, Gomez American Civil Liberties long as she has a pedestal.
tech companies have to to take flight. That’s even also points to several ads Union that it was censor- “While I have this, I’m going
stop allowing lies to just though executives, such with lies about election ship, and praise from oth- to do good things with it,”
flow and pretend to be as Facebook’s Sandberg, fraud being allowed to re- ers who say the president she said. “I think that’s my
the truth,” Gomez said in a have insisted that planning main on Facebook and In- abused his platform by en- purpose.”q
phone interview from New for the riots largely took stagram and questions why couraging violence.
York. “Facebook contin- place on other, smaller that was being allowed. In a thread defending Twit- Solution Sudoku
ues to allow dangerous lies platforms. “I can’t believe you can’t ter’s Trump ban, CEO Jack 1/18 Difficulty Level
about vaccines and CO- “The operational planning check ads before you take Dorsey said “offline harm 9 6 3 2 4 5 1 8 7
VID and the U.S. election, was happening in spaces money, and if you can’t as a result of online speech 5 2 1 8 9 7 3 6 4
and neo-Nazi groups are that Selena, for example, you shouldn’t be profiting is demonstrably real, and
selling racist products via was identifying to Sheryl from it,” she wrote. “You’re what drives our policy and 4 7 8 6 1 3 2 5 9
Instagram. Sandberg in advance say- not just doing nothing. enforcement above all.” 2021 Conceptis Puzzles, Dist. by King Features Syndicate, Inc. 1 8 6 3 5 9 4 7 2
“Enough is enough,” she ing, ‘You know, we need to You’re cashing in from evil.” In addition to banning 3 9 5 7 2 4 6 1 8
said. do something about white In an email response to Go- Trump, Facebook has been 7 4 2 1 8 6 5 9 3
Facebook and Twitter rep- supremacist extremism on- mez, Sandberg defends removing video and pho- 2 1 9 5 3 8 7 4 6
resentatives declined to line and their ability to just Facebook’s efforts to re- tos from Capitol rioters. The 8 3 7 4 6 1 9 2 5
comment. Google didn’t form a group on Facebook move harmful content, company also added text 6 5 4 9 7 2 8 3 1
respond to an AP request and happily talk away to saying the platform has re- on posts questioning the Puzzle on Page 13