Social media companies were "willfully blind" to Russia's misinformation campaign undermining the 2016 U.S. election and it's time to dump stocks in the industry, money manager Ross Gerber told CNBC.
The co-founder and CEO of Gerber Kawasaki Wealth and Investment Management thinks Facebook, Facebook-owned Instagram, and Twitter are a liability and predicts things could get worse for the industry,
"I think we've all given tech leaders a pass on their morals for way too long," Gerber said on "Closing Bell" Tuesday. "They have acted incredibly to the detriment of this country ... it's just time for them to pay," he said.
Two new reports found that Facebook and Twitter, along with Alphabet's Google, did "the bare minimum" to comply with the Senate Intelligence Committee's investigation into Russian misinformation on their platforms.
Facebook responded to the reports, saying, in part, "Congress and the intelligence community are best placed to use the information we and others provide to determine the political motivations of actors like the Internet Research Agency" and that it will continue to "fully cooperate."
In a statement provided to CNBC, the platform claims to have "made progress in helping prevent interference on our platforms during elections ... and funded independent research on the impact of social media on democracy."
Twitter said in a statement its "singular focus is to improve the health of the public conversation on our platform" and that it has made significant strides since 2016 "to counter manipulation of our service."
In addition to the headaches caused by Russian influence, Gerber thinks that social media's popularity has reached a ceiling and usage could be on a downturn.
"We do think social media use has peaked with the advent of inventions like Screen Time," an app that can be used to limit device usage, he said. "I think we're all spending a lot less time on social media for our health."
Facebook has had a rough year of negative headlines about the company's handling of its users data and privacy. Shares of the company are down nearly 20 percent on the year and nearly 35 percent from a 52-week high set in July.
Twitter, on the other hand, has increased 40 percent in 2018 but is off about 30 percent from a 52-week high it reached in June.
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