Deleting Facebook Is Harder Than Attacking It, Lawmakers Find
The platform has such wide reach that even its fiercest critics in Congress say they can’t disconnect.
For years, Nancy Pelosi has been so fed up with Facebook’s “shameful” behavior that the company’s lobbyists are banned from her office. But if you want to watch her weekly press conference, you have to click over to her Facebook page, the only place where her livestream is available to the public.
Facebook is so crucial for reaching voters—and raising money—that it’s hard for elected officials to quit the platform, even as they bemoan its corrosive influence on public discourse and American democracy. Pelosi, the speaker of the House, has shunned the company since 2019, when it declined to remove a doctored video that her opponents spread to make it appear she was slurring her words. But she still has an official page on the site with more than a million followers.