Story highlights Letterman's new series debuts on Netflix on January 12

Washington (CNN) Former President Barack Obama weighed in on the potential consequences of Russian meddling in social media platforms during the 2016 election in a new interview with David Letterman.

"What the Russians exploited, but it was already here, is we are operating in completely different information universes," Obama told Letterman in the first episode of Letterman's new Netflix series "My Next Guest Needs No Introduction." "If you watch Fox News you are living on a different planet than you are if you listen to NPR."

The comment came after Letterman asked, "Let's just say there's a democracy and the voting process is being monkeyed with by foreign countries. ... Hypothetically, what is more damaging to that democracy: Would it be the diminishment by the head of democracy of press, or would it be somebody screwing around with the actual voting process?"

"One of the biggest challenges to our democracy is the degree to which we don't share a common baseline of facts," Obama said.

He went on to discuss the use of social media in his 2007 campaign, noting that at the time people didn't realize the power -- and potential dangers -- of platforms like Twitter and Facebook.

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