House Speaker Nancy Pelosi laid into Facebook during a Thursday press briefing, accusing the social network of caring only about profits and “misleading” the country.
“The Facebook business model is strictly to make money,” Pelosi (D-Calif.) said, alluding to the company’s policy not to remove or fact-check political ads.
“They don’t care about the impact on children, they don’t care about the truth, they don’t care about where this is all coming from,” she continued. “I think that they have been very abusive of the great opportunity that technology has given them.”
Following a September ruling that politicians are “exempt” from third-party fact checking, Facebook last week announced changes to its political ad system.
New functions like searching for ads with exact phrases, grouping similar plugs, and filtering content will allow for “more efficient and effective research,” according to the firm.
Except, instead of sifting out falsehoods promoted by party members, the updates will simply boost confirmation bias and spread misinformation without verification.
“This does not mean that politicians can say whatever they like in advertisements on Facebook,” Rob Leathern, director of product management, wrote in a blog post.
Which is to say: hate speech, harmful content, and messages designed to intimidate or stop people from exercising their right to vote are prohibited, but misleading adverts are A-OK.
Pelosi, whose constituency includes Silicon Valley, is the latest in a string of prominent people condemning Facebook’s actions.
Actor Sacha Baron Cohen in November penned a Washington Post op-ed on social media site regulation. And Luke Skywalker Mark Hamill just quit the social network, accusing Zuckerberg of valuing profit over “truthfulness.”
South Bend mayor and presidential hopeful Pete Buttigieg, meanwhile, recently questioned Zuckerberg’s influence in an interview that inspired this week’s question to Pelosi.
“All they [Facebook] want are their tax cuts and no antitrust action against them,” Madam Speaker said. “And they schmooze this administration in that regard because so far that’s what they have received.
“But I think that what they have said very blatantly, very clearly, [is] that they intend to be accomplices for misleading the American people with money from God knows where.
“They didn’t even check on the money from Russia in the last election; they never even thought they should.”
Facebook did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Despite a lack of advertising scrutiny, the company did promise to crack down on deepfake videos and manipulated media ahead of the 2020 U.S. election.
The new policy, however, does not cover all doctored clips: Content deemed parody or satire is excused, as are clips edited solely to omit or change the order of words.
Last year’s viral video of Pelosi, modified to make her seem drunk during a public appearance, does not fit Facebook’s new guidelines. Neither does a recording of former VP and presidential candidate Joe Biden, which was heavily trimmed so he would sound racist.
“They have been very irresponsible,” Pelosi said. “And I think their behavior is shameful.”
More on Geek.com:
- Instagram Automatically Labels, Hides Fake News
- Twitter: Politicians Aren’t ‘Entirely’ Above Our Rules
- Facebook Begins Testing Dedicated ‘News’ Tab
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