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Roger Waters tells Facebook CEO to Zuck off after 'huge' song rights request

Ex-Pink Floyd uber-grouch calls social media mandroid 'one of the most powerful idiots in the world'

Grouchy former Pink Floyd bassist/vocalist Roger Waters launched an expletive-laden attack on human-impersonating Facebook CEObot Mark Zuckerberg after receiving a request from Instagram to use one of his songs in a promotional film.

Speaking at an event in New York to advocate for the release of Julian Assange, Waters held up a printed piece of paper he said he received "on the internet this morning", which included a request to use the Pink Floyd song 'Another Brick In The Wall (Part 2)' in exchange for what Waters described as "a huge, huge amount of money."

Youtube Video

"The answer is: fuck you! No fucking way!" Waters told the cheering crowd, with obvious relish. He continued:

I only mention that because it's the insidious movement of them to take over absolutely everything. So those of us who do have any power, and I do have a little bit – in terms of the control of the publishing of my songs I do, anyway – so I will not be a party to this bullshit, Zuckerberg.

Facebook purchased photo app Instagram in 2012 for $1bn.

Waters, who was a founding member of Pink Floyd in 1965, alongside Syd Barrett, Richard Wright, Nick Mason, and Bob Klose, has become a staunch if somewhat scattershot activist in recent years.

He has involved himself in various causes, including advocacy for Assange and whistleblower Chelsea Manning, support for military veterans, opposition to Brexit, the policies of Donald Trump and the UK's ban on hunting with dogs, and criticism of the Syrian White Helmets search-and-rescue volunteer group, whom he described as a "fake organisation."

Waters concluded his rant against Zuckerberg by poking fun at the undignified origins of Facebook as a site for rating the attractiveness of female Harvard students: "How did this little prick – who started off by saying, 'She's pretty; we'll give her a 4 out of 5. She's ugly; we'll give her a 1' – how the fuck did he get any power? And yet here he is, one of the most powerful idiots in the world."

See a video of Waters' full outburst in the tweet embedded below.

Mark Zuckerberg's net worth is $125bn. ®

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