Hillary Clinton has descended into full-blown anti-Facebook paranoia, claiming this weekend that the popular social media site has “aided and abetted” its takeover by the “right-wing echo chamber.”
It is funny because she had no problem with Facebook in 2016, back when her failed campaign was mining its user data. Clinton certainly had little to say about the site back when its employees donated more than $114,000 to her 2016 campaign.
But that was then, and this is now. Between 2016 and now, Clinton lost a winnable election, so now, Facebook is the bad guy.
The failed two-time presidential candidate’s claim that Facebook has “abetted” the “right-wing echo chamber” came this weekend after she was asked by CNN’s Fareed Zakaria to give her take on a recent Vox article.
The article, “Facebook’s top news stories are like a window into an alternate dimension,” complains that the most-read news story on Super Tuesday was a Fox News report about a federal judge ordering Clinton to give a sworn deposition regarding her private emails.
The report notes, “It’s Super Tuesday and the coronavirus is spreading, but Facebook is talking about Hillary Clinton’s emails.”
Here is the thing, though: The No. 2 most-read news story on Super Tuesday was a CNN report about the wildfires in Australia, according to the same Vox article. The No. 3 most-read news story on Super Tuesday was a CNN report about the coronavirus.
But other than that, yeah, the top-trending Fox News report is definitely proof of an insidious plan by a vast right-wing conspiracy to destroy our core democracy or something.
At least, that is Clinton’s read on the situation.
“Here, it’s Super Tuesday,” the former secretary of state grumbled during her appearance on CNN. “The Democrats are trying to decide who they want to nominate against Donald Trump. The coronavirus is spreading. We now have more and more reports from different places in the country, but, led by Fox News and Breitbart and others, it’s going to be about my emails, a totally, you know, bogus, finished, nonsense attack on me.”
Let’s pause here to note two relevant facts.
First, a federal judge did grant a request from a conservative watchdog group to question Clinton under oath about her private email server. That is not “fake news.” That is not a “bogus … nonsense” attack. Clinton is angry merely because a news organization reported something factual that is also unflattering for her.
Second, if her complaint is that non-Super Tuesday-related news reports were the top-trending stories on Super Tuesday, it is certainly worth noting that three of the top 10 stories on March 3 were by CNN, which is itself not exactly part of any supposed “right-wing echo chamber.”
In fact, two of the top three biggest news stories on Super Tuesday were by CNN!
Clinton is convinced nevertheless of the existence of a conspiracy to “get” her.
“They know how not only to drive those stories under the radar screen where the mainstream press like yourself are covering, you know, what’s happening now,” she said of the vast right-wing conspiracy against her, “but they know how to deliver those stories through the algorithms into the feeds of millions and millions of people.”
She added, “I begrudgingly give them a lot of credit because they are shaping a narrative that is part of the messaging around Trump’s reelection, around people who challenge Trump, changing the subject all of the time.”
This is the part where she descended into classic Clinton paranoia.
“They are not interested or even worried about Trump saying that the coronavirus is a hoax. They don’t want their listeners, their viewers, you know, the people that they are, frankly, feeding this other narrative, to be focused on that,” she said. “Well, what’s one of the ways to get them? You know, I live rent-free in all their heads, as you know, Fareed, so, what’s one way to get them diverted from the ways that Trump is making in handling the coronavirus?”
She added, “Well, let’s bring up Hillary’s emails again. Very clever, very diabolical, very destructive to the kind of fact-based environment and particularly news environment that is necessary for a democracy to function.”
Zakaria, who brought up the Vox article in the first place, failed to mention during Clinton’s tirade that the No. 3 story on Super Tuesday was a CNN report about coronavirus.
It must have slipped his mind.
