Hillary Clinton challenged "Congress" last Thursday to combat fake and misleading news on social media, using a post-election appearance to tackle an issue that gripped her presidential campaign and culminated with a shooting incident Sunday in Northwest Washington.
Losing US Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton has called for urgent action to stop the proliferation of "fake news".
Mrs. Hillary Clinton said it was an epidemic with "real world consequences" that threatened America's democracy. She urged the private and public sector to combat the numerous false reports, propaganda and malicious stories that had been spread over the past year.
She herself has been the target of fake news, including the "pizzagate" story. It wrongly stated during the election campaign that a pedophilia ring involving people at the highest levels of the "Democratic Party" was operating out of a Washington pizza restaurant.
Last Sunday, a man was arrested after firing a rifle inside the restaurant. The attacker later said he wanted to "self-investigate" the news reports. No-one was injured in the incident.
"This isn't about politics or partisanship. Lives are at risk. Lives of ordinary people just trying to go about their days, to do their jobs, contribute to their communities. It's now clear that so-called fake news can have real world consequences," as stated by Hillary Clinton in an interview.
She was speaking at a ceremony for outgoing "Democratic Senate Minority Leader" Harry Reid - one month after losing the presidential elections to Republican Donald Trump.
It was just the second high-profile appearance Hillary Clinton has made since conceding the election to "President-elect Donald Trump" the day after the Nov. 8 election.
In the weeks leading up to and after the elections, social-media sites such as "Facebook," "Twitter" and others were flooded with articles that looked like real news stories that were sometimes thinly connected to reality and sometimes completely baseless.
