Pelosi says Facebook's Zuckerberg 'panders' to White House to avoid federal regs, amid Twitter flap

Responding to Twitter flagging two of President Trump's recent tweets, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi argued Thursday that the business model of social media companies is "to make money at the expense of the truth and the facts."

The California Democrat focused her attack on Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg, saying he "panders" to the White House.

Zuckerberg is arguing amid the Trump-Twitter dispute that social media companies shouldn't be in charge of determining what information is true or false on their platform.

"You see what Facebook's Zuckerberg is saying today about all of this," Pelosi said. "He just panders. Tax cuts, no regulation. Our business model is to misrepresent the facts and to be a platform to do that and to try to hide under freedom of speech, which is of course, a complete violation of everything freedom of speech stands for."

Pelosi spoke ahead of the new executive order signed by the president Thursday questioning the justification for the social media platforms' exemption from legal liability for user-generated content. 

"It's outrageous, but that's an outrageous situation," Pelosi said, referring to Trump's tweets about MSNBC host and former Rep. Joe Scarborough. "While Twitter is putting up their fact check under what the president says about voting, they still won't take off the misrepresentations the president is putting out there about the death — a gentleman whose wife died and he's asking them to take down the president's misrepresentations."

"Yes, we like Twitter to put up their fact check of the president, but it seems to be very selective, very selective," she continued. "Facebook, all of them, they're all about making money. Their business model is to make money at the expense of the truth and the facts."

Pelosi was also asked if the social media companies should be further regulated.

"The fact is, is that what they are is somebody who's avoiding taxes and regulation, and that's what they're about," she said. "All they want is to not pay taxes, when they got their tax break in 2017, the tax scam that gave all those advantages to the high end, and they don't want to be regulated so they pander to the White House."