fbpx

Sacha Baron Cohen Announces Instagram Freeze to Protest Facebook’s Failure to Fight Hate

[additional-authors]
September 15, 2020
Sacha Baron Cohen speaks at the Anti-Defamation League’s Never Is Now conference in New York, Nov. 21, 2019. (Jennifer Liseo/ADL)

(JTA) — Actor and comedian Sacha Baron Cohen said he will not post to his Instagram account on Wednesday in protest of parent company Facebook’s failure to fight hate.

Cohen made the announcement in support of the Week of Action organized by the Stop Hate for Profit campaign, which was spearheaded over the summer by the Anti-Defamation League, NAACP and several other civil rights groups. The groups are protesting Facebook’s unwillingness to police hate speech or monitor posts for misinformation.

The same groups called for a pause in advertising on Facebook during the month of July.

The tweet posted Monday by Cohen included a photo of Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg wearing whiteface. The message reads: “The only thing more terrifying than Mark Zuckerberg surfing in whiteface … Is the white supremacy and lies Facebook spreads every day. This Weds Sept 16 I’m freezing my Instagram to tell Mark to #StopHateForProfit. Who’s in?!”

Cohen has been a public critic of Facebook, which he called “the greatest propaganda machine in history” last November in a speech after receiving an international leadership award from the ADL. He added that “if Facebook were around in the 1930s, it would have allowed Hitler to post 30-second ads on his ‘solution’ to the ‘Jewish problem.’”

 

Did you enjoy this article?
You'll love our roundtable.

Editor's Picks

Latest Articles

Abraham Lincoln’s Akedah

Though Lincoln himself was not Jewish, his words of support drawn from the faith of history’s first Jew continue to serve as a chord of comfort in the American consciousness.

The Law and Culture of Civil Same-Sex Marriage

The Obergefell litigation and its aftermath is a perfect illustration of how the legal theory of cultural analysis can move us beyond the endless spiral of polarization and strife we now face.

Jews Getting It from Both Sides

As long as either the Republicans or Democrats are willing to harbor the haters, they should no longer be rewarded with knee-jerk loyalty from our community.

They’re Trying to Muzzle the Jews—Again

There’s nothing objectively controversial about the ADL’s plan to set up a website and a hotline to keep an eye on the Mamdani administration. There is good reason to monitor Mamdani.

New York State OUT of Mind

If looming bankruptcy, social unrest and violent crime are part of Mamdani’s prescription for a more progressive New York, people will leave—not just the wealthy looking for safer tax havens, but everyone if they discover that the New York City of 2026 is as unlivable as it was in 1976.

More news and opinions than at a
Shabbat dinner, right in your inbox.

More news and opinions than at a Shabbat dinner, right in your inbox.