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Facebook must ‘own up’ to its role in spreading fake news: Clinton

Former Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton

Former Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton has accused Facebook of spreading fake news, adding that she will make the online social media and networking service to "own up" to its role in this regard.

Clinton said in an interview with MSNBC on Friday that Facebook had published thousands of political ads over the past two years that were linked to fake accounts based in Russia.

"We may have our disagreements among Americans, we're not going to let the Russians come in and divide us. And so we're going to make Facebook own up to everything. They've just begun to own up. They have a long way to go before they get to where they need to be, in my opinion," she said.

"Other tech companies, we're going to go after these provocateurs, these Russians posing as Americans, these content farms in Macedonia, these thousand trolls, these tens of thousands of bots, because you know what, we have every right to have a rigorous debate in America, but we don't want it being interfered with and suborned by Putin and his allies," Clinton continued.

Last week, Facebook announced that it found that 470 inauthentic accounts spent about $100,000 to buy some 3,000 ads during the 2016 US presidential campaign. However, the majority of the ads were largely promoting social issues, like immigration and gun control. They did not target Clinton or Trump.

Clinton had been leading Trump throughout the campaign in most of the polls except for the last week of the election when she lost ground to her Republican rival, Donald Trump.

Clinton says she lost the November 8 election because the Russian government and the Trump campaign conspired against her, an allegation that both Moscow and Trump deny.

Last week, Clinton once again blamed Russia for losing the presidential vote, saying Russian President Vladimir Putin helped Trump’s team win because of a “personal vendetta” against her.

She went on to say that “there's no doubt in my mind that Putin wanted me to lose and wanted Trump to win.”

Clinton said she was “convinced” that Trump and his teams had “financial relationships” with Russia and made use of “Russian money.”

On the other hand, Trump has rejected claims that Russia meddled in the 2016 American election on his behalf, arguing Russia never wanted him to be president.

 He has said Russia would have preferred a weak American leader, like Clinton.


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