Roger Waters has lashed out at Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg, after the company asked if they could use Pink Floyd's Another Brick In The Wall (Part II) in an upcoming promotion for Instagram.
Speaking at an event in New York City to support the jailed Wikileaks founder Julian Assange, Waters brandished a piece of paper and explained, "It's a request for the rights to use my song, Another Brick in the Wall (Part II), in the making of a film to promote Instagram."
"So it's a missive from Mark Zuckerberg to me... with an offer of a huge, huge amount of money and the answer is, 'fuck you! No fucking way!
"And 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 control of the publishing of my songs I do anyway. So I will not be a party to this bullshit, Zuckerberg."
Waters went on to further question the company's growing power and influence, saying "They want to use it to make Facebook and Instagram even bigger and more powerful than it already is, so that it can continue to censor all of us in this room and prevent this story about Julian Assange getting out to the general public..."
He finished by referring to Zuckerberg's early days at Harvard, where he built FaceMash, a "hot-or-not"-style website that allowed users to compare the relative attractiveness of female students.
Waters said, "You think, how did this little prick, who started off going, 'She's pretty, we'll give her a four out of five, she's ugly, we'll give her a one.' How the fuck did he get any power in anything? And yet here he is, one of the most powerful idiots in the world."
Julian Assange is currently held in London's high-security Belmarsh prison, awaiting the US government to appeal a decision by district judge Vanessa Baraitser that he cannot be extradited from the UK. The US charges relate to Wikileaks' release of hundreds of thousands of confidential military records and diplomatic cables a decade ago.
In other Floyd-related ire, last week Waters posted a lengthy statement on his personal website to explain, from his perspective, why a mooted re-release for the band’s 1977 album Animals has yet to see the light of day. And in a new interview with Rolling Stone, Gilmour says that it’s “pretty unlikely” that the pair will resolve their differences.
Waters has now agreed that the album can be released.
