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- A top advisor for President-elect Joe Biden suggested that the incoming administration plans on getting tough on Facebook and its CEO, Mark Zuckerberg.
- Bill Russo, a senior member of Biden's press team, shared a picture of President Donald Trump and Zuckerberg shaking hands, with the caption "One down. One to go."
- Russo added "Hell yes." But after it started to get noticed, the post was deleted.
- Democrats have become increasingly critical of big tech companies, with many in the party pushing for heavier regulation
- Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories.
A top advisor for President-elect Joe Biden shared, then seemingly deleted, a tweet suggesting that the incoming administration will be no friend of Facebook and its CEO, Mark Zuckerberg.
The post was from Bill Russo, a Deputy Communications Director for Biden's campaign press team.
He reposted a tweet from actor Sacha Baron Cohen that showed a picture of President Donald Trump and Zuckerberg shaking hands in the White House.
In his tweet, shared after Biden was widely lost his re-election attempt to Biden, Baron Cohen wrote: "One down. One to go."
—Sacha Baron Cohen (@SachaBaronCohen) November 7, 2020
Russo's tweet — since deleted — added the text "Hell yes."
The Financial Times reported the text of Russo's tweet while it was live, and Business Insider found a record of what it said in Google cache data.
Baron Cohen is an outspoken critic of Facebook and other big social media platforms, accusing them of spreading misinformation that undermines democracy. He called Facebook a "dutiful ally" of Trump last month.
Russo's post is a vague but ominous signal as Biden and his team finalize their agenda for government. In the past Biden has criticized Facebook, and described Zuckerberg as "a problem."
If Biden were to take on the tech giants, he would have support from many House Democrats, who have decried Amazon, Apple, Google, and Facebook as monopolies.
One prominent venture capitalist warned in October that a Biden win would mean more attempts at regulating big tech companies.
However, one Democratic congressional aide told the Financial Times that Biden would likely try to avoid conflict over the issue: "He is not someone who is going to say you should break up this company, but he will say you need to enact aggressive enforcement, and possibly some changes to the rules."
In a 2019 interview, Biden told The New York Times: "I've never been a fan of Facebook, as you probably know. I've never been a big Zuckerberg fan. I think he's a real problem."
The Asahi Shimbun via Getty Images
He added: "I've been in the view that not only should we be worrying about the concentration of power, we should be worried about the lack of privacy," and also said that social media platforms should no longer be free from being liable over what their users post.
His campaign manager, Jen O'Malley Dillon, also wrote to Zuckerberg in September, accusing Facebook of failing to police election-related misinformation.
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