Washington, D.C. — Neera Tanden, president and CEO of the Center for American Progress, released the following statement regarding Facebook’s announcement today on how it will treat misleading or otherwise manipulated media:
Facebook’s new policy focuses on potential future harms while downplaying and ignoring the actual harms from manipulated media that we’ve already witnessed. When a manipulated video of Speaker Nancy Pelosi from CAP’s Ideas Conference went viral last year, it racked up millions of views in just a few hours, and we were promised that Facebook would consider new policies to address the issue.
Since then, Facebook has actually reduced the instances in which they would take action against this kind of manipulated media. This policy change does nothing to address politicians and campaigns willing to lie to the public on any of Facebook’s dominant platforms. At a time when we know that bad actors both foreign and domestic are intent on using digital platforms to sow mistrust in our leaders and democracy, Facebook’s policy leaves itself open to be a site for propaganda and disinformation rather than authenticity and community.
For more information or to speak with an expert, contact Allison Preiss at [email protected] or 202.478.6331.