Former Sen. Al Franken, in his first public appearance since leaving office in January, called for more government regulation on tech industry giants, the Washington Examiner is reporting.
The former comedian from Minnesota had been a rising star in the Democratic Party, but left office following sexual misconduct allegations against him.
According to the Examiner, Franken spoke on Tuesday at the Xchange Forum 2018 in Lisbon, Portugal.
"Facebook talks about Cambridge Analytica … as if they are isolated bad actors," Franken said. But as we know… the vulnerabilities that Cambridge Analytica exploited were well known within Facebook and within the developer community."
And the StarTribune reported he said: "Facebook doesn’t have to care about the privacy and security of their users’ online information because there’s no mass exodus when it violates those rules. They have no real competitors … and that means users have no defense."
The Examiner noted he said regulations on tech companies would help prevent the spread of fake news. However, he noted his definition of “fake news” differed from President Trump’s view.
"Now when President Trump uses the term fake news,’ he’s using it to refer to any news story he doesn't like,” Franken said. "Especially news stories that happen to be absolutely true."