Pelosi Says Altered Videos Show Facebook Leaders Were ‘Willing Enablers’ of Russian Election Interference.
WASHINGTON POST
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) said Wednesday that
Facebook’s refusal to take down
an altered video of her shows that the company’s leaders were active contributors to online disinformation and “willing enablers” of Russian interference in the 2016 election.
Pelosi’s
comments to KQED News, her first public response to the video since The Washington Post first reported its
spread online last week, revealed a dramatic escalation of tensions between the Democratic leader and the world’s most popular social network.
“We have said all along, ‘Poor Facebook, they were unwittingly exploited by the Russians.’ I think wittingly, because right now they are putting up something that they know is false. I think it’s wrong,” she said, according to a transcript of the conversation provided by Pelosi’s office. “They’re lying to the public. . . . I think they have proven — by not taking down something they know is false — that they were willing enablers of the Russian interference in our election."
“For me, I’m in the arena, I’ve been the target all along,” Pelosi added. But “I wonder what they would do if [Facebook chief executive] Mark Zuckerberg wasn’t portrayed, you know, slowed down, made to look” drunk, she said. If it was “one of their own, would this be — is this their policy? Or is it just a woman?”
Facebook, which declined to comment, has acknowledged the video is doctored but declined to remove it, saying in a statement Friday to The Post, “We don’t have a policy that stipulates that the information you post on Facebook must be true."
Facebook said it has heavily reduced the video’s appearances in people’s “news feeds,” and that the video now plays alongside a small informational box linking to fact checks indicating it is false. but still allows it to be viewed and shared.
Monika Bickert, a Facebook vice president for product policy and counterterrorism,
said Friday on CNN that the company would remove the video only if it originated from a fraudulent account or posed a threat to public safety.
“We think it’s important for people to make their own informed choice for what to believe,” Bickert said. She added later, “We aren’t in the news business. We’re in the social media business."