Nancy Pelosi labels Facebook as ‘accomplices’ in misleading Americans

Nancy Pelosi is fed up with Facebook.

The Speaker of the House slammed the social network on Thursday, saying the company has acted as “accomplices for misleading the American people […].”

“The Facebook business model is strictly to make money. They don’t care about the impact on children, they don’t care about truth, they don’t care about where this is all coming from, and they have said, even if they know it’s not true, they will print it,” Pelosi said in remarks reported by CNBC.

She went on to say that the company is more interested in cozying up to the Trump Administration and shirking potential antitrust regulation than in pursuing the truth. 

“I think they have been very abusive of the great opportunity that technology has given them,” she said. “… All they want are their tax cuts and no antitrust action against them. And they schmooze this administration in that regard because so far that’s what they have received.”

Facebook didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment on Pelosi’s remarks. But this isn’t the first time Pelosi, whose San Francisco district sits in Facebook’s backyard, has criticized the company. She previously accused the social media company of “lying to the public” after it refused to take down a video that was edited to make the Speaker of the House sound drunk. 

Since then, Facebook has introduced a policy on so-called “deepfake” videos, but the doctored Pelosi video would still be allowed to remain online under the company’s rules. Pelosi alluded to the incident and that the company didn’t do enough to prevent Russian interference in the 2016 election.

“… I think that what they have said very blatantly, very clearly, that they intend to be accomplices for misleading the American people with money from God knows where,” she said. “They didn’t even check on the money from Russia in the last election, they never even thought they should. So they have been very irresponsible.”