Photo by Dronepicr via Wikimedia Creative Commons
An online petition with 650,000 signatures accuses Mark Zuckerberg of trying to colonize the Hawaiian island of Kauai.
The petition on change.org says the Facebook CEO is “suing Native Hawaiians in Kauai for their land so he can build a mansion. They have built lives there. They have built families there. Hawaiians are already mistreated enough as is. We need to let them have this. Their land is important to them.”
The petition was created two weeks ago and now has more than half of a million signatures. The petition went viral on Instagram and Twitter.
Zuckerberg’s spokesman says the premise of the petition is false, reports New York Daily News.
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“Mark is not suing Native Hawaiians and no one has been forced off of the land. At the beginning of 2017, Mark withdrew as a plaintiff from the process to clear the title on the land he purchased in Kauai,” the spokesperson for the Chan Zuckerberg family said in a written statement sent through email, according to Daily News.
“Portions of the land are leased to local farmers and other portions are set aside as protective areas for endangered native species. The buildings on the land will cover about 1 percent of the land or less,” the spokesperson said.
Before the petition went viral, Sen. Ron Kouchi of Hawaiʻi thanked Zuckerberg and his wife Priscilla Chan for donating $1 million to the Hawaii Community Foundation to help lawmakers deal with the coronavirus pandemic during a news conference.
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