Clinton told The Atlantic magazine during the Sundance Film Festival that she believes Zuckerberg’s Facebook is “not just going to reelect Trump, but intend[s] to reelect Trump.” The magazine reported her being horrified and alarmed by what she believed was Zuckerberg’s unwillingness to battle the spread of disinformation and propaganda on Facebook.
Clinton recalled the time she saw a slowed-down video of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi that went viral on Facebook. The video made it appear Pelosi was slurring her words and was designed to make it appear she was cognitively impaired.
“Google took it off YouTube … so I contacted Facebook,” Clinton told the Atlantic. “I said, ‘Why are you guys keeping this up? This is blatantly false. Your competitors have taken it down.’ And their response was, ‘We think our users can make up their own minds.’”
The Atlantic then asked Clinton whether she saw Zuckerberg’s reasoning that Facebook users can decide for themselves what to believe as “Trumpian,” with Clinton responding, “It’s Trumpian. It’s authoritarian.”
A Facebook spokesman told Fox News on Sunday it had no comment on Clinton’s remarks, noting that Zuckerberg had spoken about the importance of protecting free expression in his speech at Georgetown University.
“People should be able to hear from those who wish to lead them, warts and all, and that what they say should be scrutinized and debated in public,” Facebook said earlier in its statement on the issue.
In her interview with the Atlantic, Clinton said that Zuckerberg can be compared to the world leaders due to the power he holds.
“I feel like you’re negotiating with a foreign power sometimes,” she said of her conversations with Facebook top executives. “He’s immensely powerful. This is a global company that has huge influence in ways that we’re only beginning to understand.”
She insisted that Zuckerberg could be persuaded to support Trump, adding that at least this is what she wants to believe and it “gives [her] a pit in [her] stomach.”
