Surgeon General: Facebook’s efforts to tackle COVID misinformation “not enough”



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The Biden administration continued its public feud with Facebook over whether the social media giant appropriately handles disinformation about the coronavirus pandemic, with Surgeon General Dr Vivek Murthy saying Facebook’s measures were inadequate.

In a conversation with “Fox News Sunday,” Murthy said “disinformation continues to spread” and social media platforms need to do more to stop it. Facebook, meanwhile, said it has already taken action on all of Murthy’s eight recommendations for what social media companies can do.

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“It’s not enough,” Murthy said. “We are still seeing, despite some of the actions they have taken, a significant spread of disinformation.”

Murthy went on to say that “this health misinformation harms people’s health, it costs them their lives.”

Fox News reached out to Facebook for a response, but they did not immediately respond.

Facebook pushed back on claims they were not doing enough on Saturday, with Vice President of Integrity Guy Rosen writing a statement claiming the facts “tell a very different story from that promoted by the administration in recent days. “.

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Rosen noted that according to Facebook data, 85% of its users have been or want to be vaccinated against COVID-19, while the Biden administration has failed to meet its goal of having 70% of adults vaccinated by 4th July.

“Facebook is not the reason this goal was missed,” Rosen said.

Rosen’s statement came after President Biden himself accused Facebook on Friday of “killing people” with misinformation about vaccinations.

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While Facebook has made positive public statements about how it has partnered with government and taken aggressive action to tackle vaccine misinformation, the White House believes Big Tech and its social media peers have failed.

“I am asking these companies to step up and take responsibility for what is happening on their end,” said Murthy.

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