Nancy Pelosi accuses Facebook of ‘lying to the public’ after it refuses to remove fake video

Nancy Pelosi is calling bullshit. 

The Speaker of the House publicly castigated Facebook on Wednesday for both enabling Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election and its refusal to take down a video of the congresswoman that was edited to make it appear she was drunk. 

Pelosi didn’t even come close to pulling her punches, arguing in an interview with KQED that the Mark Zuckerberg-helmed behemoth wasn’t just an innocent victim of a foreign campaign to spread disinformation — rather, it happily played along.  

“I think they have proven that they were willing enablers of the Russian interference in our election,” Pelosi said, according to Scott Shafer, a senior editor at KQED. “They’re lying to the public.”

And she wasn’t done there. Fellow KQED reporter Marisa Lagos quotes the Speaker as accusing high ranking Facebook officials of sexism and employing a double standard as to what is and is not allowed on their platform. 

“They are lying to the public, I wonder what they would do if Mark Zuckerberg was portrayed — slowed down, appeared drunk — I don’t even drink … but if it was one of their own, would it be their policy, or is it just a woman?”

Facebook chose not to remove the edited video of Pelosi and instead decided the correct course of action was to reduce its prominence in the News Feed. As far as its handling of Russian interference, well, Facebook’s own board accused its CEO of moving too slowly to stop it. 

Notably, Facebook has donated to Pelosi in the past, ranking as one of her top contributors. We asked the company what, if any, response it has to the congresswoman’s accusations. We received no response as of publishing, however, if the past is any indication, we imagine whatever action the company takes will be too little and too late.