Nancy Pelosi slams Facebook over misinformation during polls, calls it 'part of problem'

Speaker of the US House of Representatives Nancy Pelosi has slammed Facebook for allowing disinformation to spread over social media and said that it was “part of the problem.”  Her remarks came in response to a question about efforts being made by tech giants to curb the spread of disinformation. "I don't know what they have been doing but I know they've been part of the problem, all along,." the top democrat told journalists.

While US media outlets have projected Democrat Joe Biden as the winner of the 46th Presidential elections, incumbent President Donald Trump has denounced the results calling elections ‘fraudulent’. Meanwhile, Facebook and Twitter have taken a stance and have slapped a warning message on many posts by Trump and his supporters. In addition, both Facebook and Google, have announced that they would continue their ban of politically oriented advertisements.

In it's latest move, Mark Zuckerberg’s Facebook has banned a large group named “Stop the Steal” that is created by the supporters of US President Donald Trump in a bid to organise demonstrations against the vote count. In the same group, some of the members even suggested violent approaches to deal with the situation of Democratic Challenger Joe Biden leading in some states while others accused the rivals of “stealing” the elections from Republicans. 

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However, the group had included over 350,000 members before the social network took it down. While the vote counting for presidential election stretched for several days, “Stop the Steal” was one of the several smaller groups that were created on Facebook by Trump supporters who tried to ensure that they would get around the moderators of the social media and “trolls” who might report or block them. Facebook, in a statement, acknowledged the group and said that it attempted to “delegitimise” the election process.

Accused of encouraging misinformation 

Social media companies have increasingly been accused of not doing enough and allowing false information and hate speech to spread for too long. Recently, Facebook and Twitter also attracted criticism after they limited the spread of a New York Post article which alleged misuse of power by Joe Biden’ son Hunter. Many conservatives have also accused social media of being biased towards democrats.

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