Menlo Park, Calif. (Reuters) — Syria’s President Bashar al-Assad was banned from Facebook on Wednesday for posting the name of the alleged Ukraine whistleblower, but his account was restored on Thursday after he said the Trump administration is similar to Nazi Germany.
“The U.S. is a state, based like any regime on gangs of bandits,” Assad said on last night’s broadcast of the Syrian Arab News Agency. “The U.S. president doesn’t represent the country, he is just an executive director of a company that has its board of directors, who represent other companies that in fact own the country.”
After being alerted to the Syrian dictator’s comments by Facebook’s army of human content moderators, CEO Mark Zuckerberg immediately restored Assad’s account.
“We terminated Assad’s account for violating our coordinating harm policy,” Zuckerberg said in a statement, “but our policy of giving people voice, and bringing people together, is more important than ever in a modern fascist state like America.”
Assad responded on live TV by giving Zuckerberg the Syrian Press Freedom Award.
“Some people believe giving more people a voice is driving division rather than bringing us together,” Assad said. “Both Mark Zuckerberg and I think that’s dangerous.”
