Biden aide deletes tweet suggesting team may have hostile attitude towards Facebook

One of Joe Biden’s top campaign advisors posted and swiftly deleted a tweet suggesting that his incoming administration may be on track for a hostile relationship with Facebook and Mark Zuckerberg in particular.

The tweet, first reported by The Financial Times, was posted on Saturday by Bill Russo, a Deputy Communications Director for Biden's campaign press team, according to the newspaper.

The top aide retweeted a post from Borat actor Sacha Baron Cohen which featured a photo of Mr Trump and Zuckerberg shaking hands accompanied by a caption, reading: “One down. One to go.”

According to The Financial Times, Mr Russo added his own comment on the retweet which said: “Hell yes.”

The post could be a signal that the tech giant is be in for a more hostile relationship with the new administration than they enjoyed under Mr Trump.

The president-elect has previously expressed his distaste for the platform and Mr Zuckerberg, having described him as a “real problem” in a 2019 interview with The New York Times.

“No, 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,” he said.

“From my perspective, 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 them being exempt, which you’re not exempt.”

Animosity has built between Silicon Valley titans and Democrats over the past four years, with Democratic lawmakers calling for Congress to rein in Big Tech in October.

One Democratic congressional aide told The Financial Times that as a centrist Mr Biden would try to avoid conflict.

"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,” they said.

Bruno star Baron Cohen has also long been a staunch critic of the social media giant and its founder.

In November last year, the 49-year-old launched a scathing attack on social media platforms including Facebook and Twitter, calling them “the greatest propaganda machine in history”.

Both Facebook and the Biden Campaign did not immediately respond to The Independent’s request for comment.

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