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Hillary Clinton criticized Facebook for refusing to take down doctored videos of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, calling the clip “sexist trash.”
The former presidential candidate and secretary of state did not shy away from politics in a commencement speech at Hunter College in New York on Wednesday. While raising concerns about the growing threats to American democracy and voters, according to Politico, she slammed social media companies for their sluggish efforts at “cleaning up their platforms.” Many of these platforms are being manipulated to spread misinformation, create division, and promote extremism, she said.
“And we saw why it’s so important just last week, when Facebook refused to take down a fake video of Nancy Pelosi,” she said, according to Politico. “It wasn’t even a close call. The video is sexist trash. And YouTube took it down, but Facebook kept it up.”
The videos that Clinton is referring to are short clips that deliberately slow down Pelosi’s speech to sound slurred and drunken. Trump shared one of these videos on Twitter on May 23, writing, “PELOSI STAMMERS THROUGH NEWS CONFERENCE.”
Earlier that day, during a news conference, he had already dubbed the House speaker “Crazy Nancy” and claimed she had “lost it.”
Clinton suggested that members of the public needs to show their opposition to Facebook’s decision. She also warned that the platform will be “flooded” with more fake videos if Facebook doesn’t impose any regulations.
This isn’t the first time that Clinton has raised concerns about the Pelosi video. A day after Trump tweeted the doctored video, she accused him of spreading “sexist trash” during the Harris County Democratic Party’s annual JRR luncheon in Houston, Texas, according to USA Today. During the event, she shared a similar message of resilience.
”So if you believe in the rule of law and the responsibility that we all have to hold our leaders accountable, then we cannot relent on this front either,” she said, according to USA Today.
The Pelosi video controversy has shined a spotlight on how reluctant some tech companies are to stop the spread of fake news on their platforms. YouTube took down the video last Thursday, telling the Washington Post’s Drew Harwell that the video violated “clear policies that outline what content is not acceptable to post.” But Twitter remained silent. Although Facebook acknowledged that the video is false, it did not remove the video because it does not have a policy that information shared on the platform must be true, Harwell wrote.
