Joe Biden stated that Facebook and different social media platforms are “killing people” by permitting misinformation about COVID-19 to unfold on their platforms.

Biden’s feedback got here in response to a reporter who requested the president what his message to “platforms like Facebook” was concerning misinformation about COVID-19. “They’re killing people,” Biden stated. “I mean they’re really — look, the only pandemic we have is among the unvaccinated. And they’re killing people.”

His remarks, at some point after the Surgeon basic issued well being advisory on the hazards of vaccine misinformation, comes amid mounting stress for Facebook and different platforms to do extra to deal with misinformation concerning the coronavirus vaccines. But Facebook has come beneath explicit scrutiny resulting from its measurement, and with countering vaccine falsehoods.

A broadly cited reported from the Center for Countering Digital Hate discovered that a lot of the vaccine misinformation that spreads on-line might be linked to — a lot of whom stay lively on Facebook regardless of the corporate’s makes an attempt to on vaccine misinformation in latest months. Facebook didn’t instantly reply to a request for remark.