Ben Rhodes: ‘Worrying’ the Feds Can’t ‘Edit’ American’s Facebook Feeds

‘I mean we can’t edit people’s Facebook feeds and say ‘that’s fake news, and that’s not‘

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Firmly believing Russian memes on Facebook cost Hillary Clinton the 2016 election, former Obama adviser Ben Rhodes is decrying the federal government's inability to "edit" Americans' Facebook feeds.

That Americans have access to unfiltered content is a concern, Rhodes said. 

"We can’t edit people’s Facebook feeds and say that’s fake news and that’s not," Rhode said, speaking of government. "And what worries me today, Andrea, is we still don’t have a lot of capacity and frankly, our government is probably not doing anything to prevent this. So the likelihood the Russians will do this again in the mid-term elections and the next presidential election is very high.”

Here's a transcript:

MITCHELL: “The criticism about not being more outspoken about the election, you’re writing and I’ve heard some of the interviews you’ve given that he had to be concerned Donald Trump was already saying the election is rigged and he didn’t want to feed that by coming out. The criticism is, if the president of the United States had come into the briefing room and said what he delegated to Jeh Johnson and Jim Clapper to warn beforehand about the attacks.”
RHODES: “Yes. And part of what I look back on and wonder about is when there was statement of warning, it was about the hacking and releasing of e-mails, it didn’t really address the fake news, the fact that people’s social media feeds were being polluted by this Russian-created content favoring Donald Trump. I think what he would argue, we’d say this question, ‘Do you need to go out and say this yourself?’ He would say, ‘I get asked about this when I’m in the briefing room. We’ve warned them. I amplify those warnings when asked about it, but I’m not a messenger the people who are consuming that stuff will listen to and Trump will say it’s rigged.’ Frankly, the government also didn’t have a lot of capacity to deal with this. We can’t edit people’s Facebook feeds and say that’s fake news and that’s not. And what worries me today, Andrea, is we still don’t have a lot of capacity and frankly, our government is probably not doing anything to prevent this. So the likelihood the Russians will do this again in the mid-term elections and the next presidential election is very high.”

(via Mediaite)

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