US activists have laid body bags in front of the Facebook’s offices in Washington DC in protest against coronavirus misinformation that has been spread on the US social media platform.
The group calling itself “The Real Facebook Oversight Board” (RFOB), tweeted that, “We placed body bags in front of Facebook HQ in Washington DC to draw attention to dangerous disinfo on Facebook,” adding, “Facebook will likely report record earnings today. Investors need to ask themselves: what are they getting for their money?”
The RFOB, a coalition of academics, experts, and civil rights leaders, also released a report demanding Facebook disable post engagement on content from “proven disinformation superspreaders”.
It referenced a report by the Center for Countering Digital Hate (CCDH), which identified a “disinformation dozen” – 12 individuals that was found were responsible for two-thirds of all anti-vaccine content on Facebook.
Facebook has drawn strong accusations from the Biden administration of failing to tackle a misinformation spread via its platform regarding the coronavirus vaccines, with the US president saying that the US social media are “killing people” due to the spread of false information.
Facebook denied Biden’s assertions, with the US president later backtracking on his statement that it was not the social media platform itself “killing people”, but the misinformation.The protest came as US COVID cases and deaths driven by unvaccinated people continue to surge across the country.
US top infectious diseases expert has warned Dr. Anthony Fauci said the coronavirus situation in the US is becoming “a pandemic among the unvaccinated Americans.”
“We have 50 percent of the country not fully vaccinated. That’s a problem, particularly when you have a variant, like Delta, which has this extraordinary characteristic of being able to spread very efficiently and very easily from person to person,” Fauci said.