House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said that Facebook's refusal to take down a doctored video of her makes ... [+]
Topline: After Forbes reported Tuesday that users could still watch a viral doctored video of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi on Facebook Watch without any fact checking, Facebook updated the video to include the same warning that appears on other places on the platform.
- On Tuesday—four days after Facebook said it would alert people to the false video—users could still view it on Facebook Watch without any disclaimers or warnings.
- After Forbes reported on the matter, Facebook quietly updated the Facebook Watch version to include a message that links to third party articles debunking the video.
- A Facebook spokesperson did not immediately return a request for comment from Forbes.
An altered video purporting to show Pelosi slurring her words during a talk at the Center for American Progress went viral last week, leading the right-wing social media ecosystem to label Pelosi as “drunk.”
The Washington Post found that the video was slowed to 75% of its original speed.
Facebook, in following its guidelines about fake news, refused to take the video down. Instead, the company said it would stop its algorithms from promoting the story and provide a disclaimer alerting users that it’s false.
Facebook’s inability to enforce its own rules when it came to the Facebook Watch version of the video was yet another setback for the company that’s been at the center of a political firestorm over the Pelosi video.
“I think we’re also starting to see that the Facebook product itself is so large and complicated at this point that they don’t even do a good job managing their own product,” said Jennifer Grygiel, a professor at Syracuse University.
Pelosi herself said in an interview with KQED that Facebook’s refusal to take down the video shows that the company leaders were “willing enablers” of the Russian interference in the 2016 election.
