Former-Senator Al Franken blasts Facebook, election meddling in first speech since resignation

Al Franken returned to the spotlight to deliver a blistering rebuke of tech companies, specifically Facebook, over abuse of users privacy data while speaking at a cybersecurity conference in Lisbon, Portugal. He suggested Facebook was careless with users' information. "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," said Franken. He said the tech giant took so long to address the issues and ultimately didn't do enough to prevent data harvesting "because they knew they could get away with it." While Franken focused mostly on user privacy, he also touched on the current political climate and future of democracy. "If we can't have a political discourse where we agree on basic, objective facts, then our democratic government will continue to be polarized and paralyzed," he said.