President Joe Biden said Friday 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, as he left for a weekend at the presidential retreat in Camp David.
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.
Facebook rejected the criticism, saying its efforts to get facts out are actually saving lives.
“We will not be distracted by accusations which aren’t supported by the facts,” Facebook said of Biden’s barb.
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, according to the leading social network.
According to US health officials, a current spike in COVID-19 deaths and illnesses around the country is almost exclusively hitting people who remain unvaccinated.
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.
