D21 President Fred Wertheimer Statement on Facebook: CEO Zuckerberg & Facebook will bear responsibility if foreign election intervention using Facebook happens again

CEO Zuckerberg And Facebook Will Bear Responsibility For Foreign Election Intervention Using Facebook If That Happens Again In The 2018 Elections

Statement of Democracy 21 President Fred Wertheimer

It is clear beyond any reasonable doubt that Russia intervened in the 2016 presidential election.

There is also no question that the Russian intervention could not have happened in the way that it did without the use of Facebook to spread Russian ads and messages throughout the country.

CEO Mark Zuckerberg and Facebook may have been an unwitting facilitator of the Russian efforts to manipulate the 2016 presidential election. But now they know what Russia did and how they did it, due in part to investigative work by Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s office.

It is Facebook’s responsibility to ensure that neither Russia nor any other foreign interest uses Facebook to intervene in the coming mid-term congressional elections or in any other future elections.

Facebook, more than anyone else, has the skills, expertise, technology and personnel necessary to prevent foreign interests from using its platform to attack and manipulate our elections again. It is Facebook’s responsibility to prevent the use of its platform for such foreign attacks from ever happening again.

If Facebook is again used illegally by Russia or any other foreign interest to intervene in and sabotage our elections and our democracy, CEO Zuckerberg and Facebook will bear responsibility for that illegal foreign intervention.

Zuckerberg and Facebook should be on notice that this is the reality they face.

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Released: April 9, 2018