Robby Mook, former campaign manager for Hillary Clinton in 2016, said Facebook is acting like gun manufacturers and cigarette companies by refusing to take down doctored videos involving Democratic House Speaker Nancy Pelosi.
Mook pointed to when the Clinton campaign had to deal with similar misinformation about her health.
“This is the normal trope, right? It’s the crazy old lady, is there something wrong with her health? You recall Hillary wore those glasses to testimony that the Republicans dragged her in for and they claimed that it meant she had some sort of brain problem, which is utterly absurd,” Mook said.
Mook was referring to the thick specialty glasses Clinton wore during her 2013 testimony to Congress about the 2012 U.S. consulate attack in Benghazi, Libya. Clinton was recovering from a concussion and blood clot.
“But there’s one other piece of this that really bothers me and that is Facebook refused to pull these posts down,” he said. “I mean, these guys are acting like the cigarette companies or the gun manufacturers, you know, ‘Guns don’t kill people, people kill people.'”
Mook said if there are fake videos on Facebook’s platform, then it’s their “obligation to pull this down.” He also advocated for a law to be passed to make it illegal to leave fake videos up.
Mook’s remarks come after a video of Pelosi was posted on Facebook to make it appear she was slurring her speech, implying she was drunk. Facebook said it will not take the video down.
The company has taken steps to limit the spread of the video and had fact-checkers label the video as false.
