Facebook, Inc. (NASDAQ: FB), Google Inc. (NASDAQ: GOOGL) – Facebook rebuts President Biden’s claim and says US can’t be blamed for not meeting vaccine targets

President Joe Biden said on Friday that social media networks are “killing people” by spreading misinformation about coronavirus vaccines.

What Happened: Facebook, Inc (NASDAQ: FB) defended on Saturday President Joe Biden’s remarks that social media platforms are “killing people” by allowing Covid vaccine misinformation to proliferate on their services, Reuters reports.

In a blog post, Facebook Vice President Guy Rosen said that “President Biden’s goal was to have 70% of Americans vaccinated by July 4. Facebook is not the reason why this goal was missed ”.

“The data shows that 85% of Facebook users in the United States have been or wish to be vaccinated against COVID-19,” Rosen said.

Facebook’s response comes after the president was asked what his message was to companies like Facebook regarding Covid disinformation. Biden replied, “They are killing people.”

“I mean they really, look, the only pandemic we have is among the unvaccinated, and that’s – they’re killing people,” the president said.

Facebook has introduced rules against specific misrepresentation about COVID-19 and vaccines against the virus. Instead, the company claims that it provides people with reliable information on these topics.

Why is this important: Deaths from Covid-19 are on the rise again in the United States, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, as the delta variant largely affects unvaccinated pockets across the country.

Since the pandemic hit the United States, disinformation about Covid 19 has spread across various social media sites, including Facebook, Twitter Inc (NYSE: TWTR), and Alphabet Inc (NASDAQ: GOOGL) YouTube.

Many researchers and lawmakers across the country have long accused Facebook of failing to control harmful content on its platforms.

Covid 19 cases in the United States are up 70% from the previous week and deaths are up 26%, with outbreaks occurring in parts of the country with low vaccination rates.