Social media misinformation on Covid taking lives in US, Biden

Facebook is facing new challenge. This time in USA. President Joe Biden has said that social media misinformation about Covid-19 and vaccinations is "killing people" and the White House said Facebook needs to clean up its act. "They're killing people. The only pandemic we have is among the unvaccinated. And they're killing people," Biden told reporters at the White House, The White House is turning up the pressure on social media companies to weed out what officials say is widely spread misinformation on coronavirus vaccinations. A current spike in Covid-19 deaths and illnesses around the country is almost exclusively hitting people who remain unvaccinated. "There is a clear message that is coming through: this is becoming a pandemic of the unvaccinated," Centers for Disease Control and Prevention director Rochelle Walensky told reporters on Friday. Many of those refusing vaccinations, despite the ease of availability throughout the United States, have said they do not trust the shots.Skepticism is being fueled both by false posts spread by anti-vaccine activists online and by Republican politicians claiming the vaccinations are part of attempts at government control.

White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki said that Facebook and others are not doing enough to push back. "Everybody has a role to play in making sure there's accurate information," she said. Psaki said the White House was taking a more active approach in calling out what it sees as misinformation but insisted that Facebook in particular should react more quickly in taking down problematic posts. "There's about 12 people who are producing 65 percent of anti-vaccine misinformation on social media platforms. All of them remain active on Facebook, despite some even being banned on other platforms," Psaki said, without identifying those dozen posters. The turning up of the volume against fake news immediately drew accusations from right-wing media that Biden was installing a "Big Brother" type surveillance over citizens' opinions.

Facebook pushed back at the White House claims. "We will not be distracted by accusations which aren't supported by the facts," a Facebook spokesperson told AFP. "The fact is that more than two billion people have viewed authoritative information about Covid-19 and vaccines on Facebook, which is more than any other place on the internet. More than 3.3 million Americans have also used our vaccine finder tool to find out where and how to get a vaccine. The facts show that Facebook is helping save lives. Period." Facebook said it was taking "aggressive action against misinformation about Covid-19 and vaccines to protect public health," and that it had removed "more than 18 million pieces of Covid misinformation," and disabled accounts spreading false information.