House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) on Wednesday put Facebook on blast for its refusal to take down a video that was doctored to make her look like she was slurring her speech.
“We have said all along, ‘Poor Facebook, they were unwittingly exploited by the Russians,'” Pelosi told local California radio station KQED. “I think wittingly, because right now they are putting up something that they know is false. I think it’s wrong.”
“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,” she continued.
Facebook’s vice president for product policy and counterterrorism, Monika Bickert, told CNN last week that the social media giant wouldn’t take down the video because it doesn’t promote violence. Instead, Facebook is sending out alerts that the video is fake.
“We think it’s important for people to make their own informed choice about what to believe,” Bickert told Anderson Cooper. “Our job is making sure that we are getting them accurate information.”
She defended Facebook’s decision on the grounds that the public conversation about the video is centered on its inauthenticity, not the actual video alone.
The doctored Pelosi videos started making the rounds online late last week.
President Donald Trump and his allies, including Rudy Giuliani and Corey Lewandowski, have boosted doctored videos of Pelosi that’ve been slowed down to make her seem drunk or feeble. It’s been Trumpworld’s go-to attack against the House speaker ever since Trump stormed out of a meeting with her and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) last week.
