Hillary Clinton has accused Facebook’s “authoritarian” chief executive Mark Zuckerberg of intending to use the platform’s “immense” power to re-elect Donald in the upcoming election.
Mr’s defeated 2016 opponent told The Atlantic of her horror at Mr Zuckerberg’s influence and his apparent unwillingness to tackle misinformation, for which she suggested several damning motives.
“They have, in my view, contorted themselves into making arguments about freedom of speech and censorship, which they are hanging on to because it’s in their commercial interests,” Ms Clinton said.
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Facebook has sparked a bitter row with its decision to allow politicians to lie in paid advertisements, despite banning ordinary users from doing so.
Senior Facebook officials have sought to justify the decision in terms of free speech, claiming the public should see politicians’ unedited statements even if they are not aware of their falsity.
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1/6 Alan Dershowitz
Dershowitz is a controversial American lawyer best known for the high-profile clients he has successfully defended.
Those clients have included OJ Simpson, Jeffrey Epstein and Harvey Weinstein.
One longtime Harvard Law associated told the New Yorker Dershowitz “revels in taking positions that ultimately are not just controversial but pretty close to indefensible.”
Getty
2/6 Ken Starr
Starr became a household name in the 1990s as the independent counsel who led the investigation that led to Bill Clinton’s impeachment.
That investigation began as a look into a real estate scandal known as Whitewater, and eventually led to impeachment after Mr Clinton lied under oath about having an affair with White House intern Monica Lewinsky.
AP
3/6 Jay Sekulow
Sekulow is the president’s longtime personal attorney, and, now, personal lawyer in the White House.
He has been accused by former Rudy Giuliani associate Lev Parnas of being “in the loop” during the Ukraine scandal.
Getty
4/6 Pam Bondi
Bondi is the former attorney general in Florida, and a longtime backer of the president’s.
She made a name for herself in Florida for taking hyper partisan stances on issues, and her penchant for publicity.
She is likely to be a prominent public-facing figure during the trial.
AFP/Getty
5/6 Pat Cipollone
Cipollone is the White House counsel, and leading the president’s defence team.
Getty
6/6 Rudy Giuliani
While not officially named as one of the president’s impeachment lawyers, it is hard to ignore Giuliani’s outsized role in this process.
The former mayor of New York has been making headlines for months as he defends his client, and for his apparent role in the effort to compel Ukraine to launch the investigation into Joe Biden.
We’ll see how he figures in the actual trial, which he has said he would like to be a part of.
Reuters
1/6 Alan Dershowitz
Dershowitz is a controversial American lawyer best known for the high-profile clients he has successfully defended.
Those clients have included OJ Simpson, Jeffrey Epstein and Harvey Weinstein.
One longtime Harvard Law associated told the New Yorker Dershowitz “revels in taking positions that ultimately are not just controversial but pretty close to indefensible.”
Getty
2/6 Ken Starr
Starr became a household name in the 1990s as the independent counsel who led the investigation that led to Bill Clinton’s impeachment.
That investigation began as a look into a real estate scandal known as Whitewater, and eventually led to impeachment after Mr Clinton lied under oath about having an affair with White House intern Monica Lewinsky.
AP
3/6 Jay Sekulow
Sekulow is the president’s longtime personal attorney, and, now, personal lawyer in the White House.
He has been accused by former Rudy Giuliani associate Lev Parnas of being “in the loop” during the Ukraine scandal.
Getty
4/6 Pam Bondi
Bondi is the former attorney general in Florida, and a longtime backer of the president’s.
She made a name for herself in Florida for taking hyper partisan stances on issues, and her penchant for publicity.
She is likely to be a prominent public-facing figure during the trial.
AFP/Getty
5/6 Pat Cipollone
Cipollone is the White House counsel, and leading the president’s defence team.
Getty
6/6 Rudy Giuliani
While not officially named as one of the president’s impeachment lawyers, it is hard to ignore Giuliani’s outsized role in this process.
The former mayor of New York has been making headlines for months as he defends his client, and for his apparent role in the effort to compel Ukraine to launch the investigation into Joe Biden.
We’ll see how he figures in the actual trial, which he has said he would like to be a part of.
Reuters
Mr’s re-election campaign has already courted controversy with a misleading Facebook advert pushing a conspiracy about possible challenger Joe Biden.
In a phrasing that suggested she believed the social media giant inadvertently influenced her defeat in the 2016 election, Ms Clinton said there was reason to believe that Facebook is “not just going to re-elect, but intend[s] to re-elect”.
Mr Zuckerberg has been “somehow persuaded”, Ms Clinton claimed, “that it’s to his and Facebook’s advantage not to cross. That’s what I believe. And it just gives me a pit in my stomach”.
The Facebook co-founder was recently forced to deny the president had lobbied him after NBC discovered the pair enjoyed an intimate White House dinner, which was not publicly disclosed.
They merely talked about “things that were on his mind, and some of the to that you’d read about in the news around our work”, Mr Zuckerberg told CBS News.
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In October, Facebook decided to include “the platform of the alt-right”, Breitbart News, in its “high-quality news” section, days after Politico revealed Mr Zuckerberg had been hosting off-the-record dinners and informal talks to discuss free speech with controversial right-wing journalists like Ben Shapiro and Tucker Carlson, and politician Lindsey Graham – a staunch defender.
The meetings came amid unsubstantiated allegations that the site was censoring right-wing news sites. Twitter’s CEO Jack Dorsey also reportedly undertook similar meetings.
While the substance of Mr Zuckerberg’s presidential meeting remains a mystery, Ms Clinton said she believed the pair shared comparable views on certain subjects.
Asked about Mr Zuckerberg’s previous statements on the relationship between facts and opinions, she said: “It’s Trumpian,” she said. “It’s authoritarian.”
Mr Zuckerberg’s aversion to one Democratic presidential hopeful is public knowledge. In leaked audio, Mr Zuckerberg has indicated he would “go to the mat” and “fight” Elizabeth Warren, whose antitrust policies he described as “an existential” threat to Facebook.
Ms Warren’s position is representative of growing interest in and suspicion of the platform in Washington.
These concerns were bolstered after it emerged Cambridge Analytica was able to identify and target swing voters in 2016 using data harvested from some 87 million Facebook users by exploiting a loophole on the site via a quiz app.
Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez questions Facebook’s Zuckerberg over allowing politicians to lie in ads
During a congressional hearing into the data breach Mr Zuckerberg publicly apologised for not doing enough to prevent “fake news, foreign interference in elections, and hate speech, as well as developers and data privacy”, adding: “We didn’t take a broad enough view of our responsibility, and that was a big mistake.”
The 2016 election is viewed by many as the first US election to be notably impacted by online misinformation. False and misleading news articles and images appeared on many voters’ Facebook newsfeeds, which several studies have credited with helping to propel Mr to victory.
“We did not understand what was going on below the radar screen,” Ms Clinton said, not in direct reference to Facebook. However, she compared the social media platform’s power to that of a national government.
“I feel like you’re negotiating with a foreign power sometimes,” the former secretary of state said, referencing her dealings with those “at the highest levels” in the company.
“[Mr Zuckerberg] is immensely powerful,” Ms Clinton added. “This is a global company that has huge influence in ways that we’re only beginning to understand.”
Facebook has been contacted for comment.
Following publication of this article, Breitbart News has asked the Independent to place on record its position that it rejects the statement made by Steve Bannon – the former executive Chairman of Breitbart News- that the site is a “platform of the alt-right”.
