Alghadeer TV Alghadeer TV
US President Joe Biden has said that American social media companies, such as Facebook, that allow coronavirus misinformation to spread on their platforms are “killing people.”
On Friday afternoon, Biden was asked during a press conference at the White House what his message is to social media platforms on the spread of inaccurate information about COVID-19 vaccines.
“They’re killing people. The only pandemic we have is among the unvaccinated. And they’re killing people,” the US president said.
Amid the Biden administration’s efforts to get more Americans vaccinated, US surgeon General Vivek Murthy issued an advisory on Thursday describing health misinformation as an “urgent threat”.
Murthy blamed “health misinformation” on social media for vaccine hesitancy despite vaccinations being widely available, and called for a whole-of-society effort to combat the misinformation problem.
Meanwhile, White House press secretary Jen Psaki said on Friday the Biden administration has asked Facebook and other social media companies to be more active in removing “harmful” posts that spread disinformation about coronavirus vaccines.
“We are regularly making sure social media platforms are aware of the latest narratives dangerous to public health that we and many other Americans are seeing across all of social and traditional media and we work to engage with them to better understand the enforcement of social media platform policies,” Psaki told reporters.
Providing an example of false information, Psaki noted the rumors on social media that coronavirus vaccines cause infertility.
“We want to know that the social media platforms are taking steps to address it,” Psaki said. “That is inaccurate, false information.”
Facebook, however, has rejected criticism about its efforts to combat coronavirus misinformation, saying, “We will not be distracted by accusations which aren’t supported by the facts.”
The Biden administration’s push to combat disinformation comes as the vaccination rate has slowed across the United States and the more contagious delta variant has spread among unvaccinated people.
