White House says it is alerting Facebook about posts that spread COVID-19 misinfo; US surgeon general calls on social media companies to tackle health misinfo
one of the classic hallmarks of fascism — that the people who spent 5 years babbling about fascism support. https://twitter.com/... Brandy Zadrozny / @brandyzadrozny : The most ironic part? CrowdTangle gathered some of the most adversarial tech reporters and connected them with Facebook product and policy employees and actual probably engendered goodwill. Like it was probably a net PR win. But short-sighted Growth execs were mad...about a list. Brandy Zadrozny / @brandyzadrozny : For the foreseeable future, this account is just a vehicle to retweet this story about how Facebook is choosing to nuke a team that actually increased understanding of the threats posed on Facebook because it slightly annoyed a handful of executives. https://twitter.com/... Cory Doctorow / @doctorow : Facebook's attack on Crowdtangle is significant, especially in light of its sustained assault on independent accountability and transparency tools like Ad Observer, a project from NYU's engineering school. https://pluralistic.net/... 10/ Glenn Greenwald / @ggreenwald : As I've documented before, the Supreme Court has ruled that the First Amendment's free speech guarantee is violated when government officials pressure or coerce private actors to censor for them. That is exactly what the Biden WH is doing with Facebook: https://greenwald.substack.com/ ... @fboversight : Company over country https://twitter.com/... Cory Doctorow / @doctorow : It's hard to overstate how deranged this is: surely Zuckerberg presents a different facet of his identity to his spouse, his kids, his shareholders, his co-workers and the press. It's not “two faced” to talk to your boss differently from how you talk to your lover. 24/ Cory Doctorow / @doctorow : Facebook's desire to “control the narrative” is part of this intellectual tradition, and it's hardly the first time the company has done it. Early in the company's history, Zuckerberg defended his “real names” policy by saying that anyone who objected was “two-faced.” 23/ Dan Price / @danpriceseattle : @Acyn @stephhegarty Mark Zuckerberg is now worth $129 billion, and he's gotten $74 billion richer in the pandemic. As long as people keep flocking to FB, that's all they care about. Benedict Evans / @benedictevans : @MLnieto Everyone at Facebook is obsessed with analysis and metrics and yet somehow they don't think about those metrics at all? Senator Mazie Hirono / @maziehirono : CrowdTangle data shows what we already know: that right-wing disinformation and hate speech are rampant on @Facebook. The response? The company considers less transparency. When is Mark Zuckerberg going to realize Facebook doesn't have an image problem—Facebook is the problem? Liz Wheeler / @liz_wheeler : If the White House is flagging “misinformation” on Facebook for Facebook to censor... doesn't that mean that FB is acting as an arm of the state in which case wouldn't free speech be constitutionally protected on the platform? @mtgreenee : This is how communism starts. The White House is working with Facebook to censor your post which is violating your free speech because people want to discuss (on FB) a NON-FDA approved vaccine that the Biden admin wants to force you to take. @aslavitt : Today the @Surgeon_General classified misinformation as a public health danger. Purveyors of lies about vaccines are as dangerous as people who dump toxins in our lakes and rivers. Jennifer Johnson / @jj_rochester : Part of my job is to team up w/ @DocEMurray and work with our @URMed_GCH staff to feel prepared & comfortable in working with media and social media to spread credible knowledge and combat misinformation. We're grateful to @GCHPedsChair for supporting this and for this message ⬇️ https://twitter.com/... Karine Jean-Pierre / @kjp46 : In a new Surgeon General's Advisory, the Surgeon General is warning the American public about the urgent threat of health misinformation & calling for a whole-of-society approach to address health misinformation during the COVID-19 pandemic and beyond. https://www.hhs.gov/... Arne Duncan / @arneduncan : Thanks @Surgeon_General for your critically important leadership! We must all work together, with everything we have, to combat two interrelated public health crises: COVID and misinformation. Both have, and will continue, to kill us if we don't stop them. https://twitter.com/... Kevin Munoz / @kmunoz46 : Tune in shortly to hear the Surgeon General speak to the urgent issue of addressing health misinformation. It is on all of us to do more to ensure every American can make an informed decision on the facts for their health. https://twitter.com/... @pturnermd : Health misinformation is literally killing us as a society. Glad that the @Surgeon_General is addressing this. Lack of health literacy is one thing (which also needs to be addressed), but flagrant articulation/amplification of misinformation is the scourge of #COVID19 times. https://twitter.com/... Sandra Abrevaya / @sabrevaya : As @PressSec said, there's about 12 people who are producing 65% of the anti-vaccine misinformation on social media platforms. Addressing health misinformation saves lives. Thank you @Surgeon_General and @ewwaldo for your leadership. https://twitter.com/... Megan Fox / @meganfoxwriter : I think this means we can FOIA all White House communications with Facebook... https://twitter.com/... Jack Posobiec / @jackposobiec : I told you the Biden Admin was working on lists https://twitter.com/... Evelyn Douek / @evelyndouek : The Surgeon General's advisory on misinfo mostly just repeats the regular platitudes & avoids the hard qs but something that stuck out is that it stops short of calling on platforms to *take down* “misinformation” Outside the binary! You love to see it. https://www.hhs.gov/... https://twitter.com/... @jackposobiec : Notice how Psaki discusses Facebook as if it's just another government agency Glenn Greenwald / @ggreenwald : The White House is admitting that they're compiling lists of people who they claim are posting content they regard as “problematic” and that constitute “misinformation” and are demanding Facebook remove them. This is authoritarianism: https://twitter.com/... Josh Hawley / @hawleymo : The Biden Administration is apparently coordinating with @Facebook to censor speech and evade the First Amendment. I'm asking @Facebook for answers See also Mediagazer
DeadlineTed Johnson
Context & Ripple Effects
The administration had already sought coronavirus-misinformation help from Facebook, Twitter, Microsoft and other technology companies in an early cross-platform outreach effort. The current focus narrows that engagement to Facebook and pairs it with a public health call for broader platform action.
The pressure is also more pointed than routine coordination: Biden officials had reportedly concluded that Facebook was not adequately addressing their concerns or was withholding information, setting up a dispute over Facebook’s response rather than a purely voluntary partnership.
First-order effects
Facebook is immediately subject to direct White House reporting of specific COVID-19 misinformation posts, increasing pressure on its policy and enforcement teams.
Other social media companies are put on notice by the surgeon general’s call to address health misinformation, even though Facebook is the named target of the administration’s alerts.
Second-order effects
Facebook’s handling of flagged posts becomes a visible benchmark for whether the administration’s concerns are being acted on, while rival platforms face pressure to show comparable health-misinformation safeguards.
The dispute shifts attention from individual posts to the evidence platforms can provide about the scale and handling of misinformation—a direction reflected in the surgeon general’s later formal request for platform data.
Third-order effects
If government engagement continues to move from voluntary coordination toward platform-specific scrutiny and information requests, health-misinformation governance becomes a more formal accountability function for large social platforms.
The pattern favors standards that can be applied across services rather than platform-specific public disputes, but the supplied coverage does not establish what enforcement framework would govern them.
The trend: US health-misinformation policy is moving from broad voluntary outreach to direct platform scrutiny and demands for evidence of how platforms manage harmful content.
(1) Quite apart from the merits, the White House should stop presuming to tell private companies how to moderate user speech. (2) On the merits, that's an incredibly dumb idea on multiple levels. https://twitter.com/...
Psaki: There's about 12 people who are producing 65% of anti-vaccine misinformation on social media platforms. All of them remain active on Facebook despite some being banned on other platforms including ones that Facebook owns https://twitter.com/...
1/ “For social media companies, misinformation is like secondhand smoke, spreading falsehoods to millions before the truth can be known.” Smart piece by @BostonJoan & @jennifer_nilsen after the @Surgeon_General called misinfo a health hazard. https://www.nbcnews.com/...
NEW: The Surgeon General's advisory about health misinformation gives regulators necessary knowledge to empower a cross-sector field to counter media manipulation. But, Facebook, Twitter and other social media companies need to be treated like Big Tobacco https://www.nbcnews.com/…
The @Surgeon_General's Advisory on Confronting Health Misinformation makes it clear that addressing health misinformation will require a whole-of-society effort. We all share in the responsibility, and we pledge to play our part. Read more at https://surgeongeneral.gov/... https:…
Facebook is a private entity. I didn't like it when the Trump administration told Facebook what to do, and I don't like it when the Biden administration does the same. It's not the government's job to moderate Facebook. It's Facebook's job. https://twitter.com/...
Health misinformation is an urgent threat to our health that requires an all-of-society response. Read the @Surgeon_General's new advisory to find out what you can do to act: https://surgeongeneral.gov/... https://twitter.com/...
Moderation is a platform decision, not a White House decision. Trying to force more moderation is as constitutionally problematic as trying to force less moderation. https://twitter.com/...
The Biden Administration just announced they are working with Facebook to censor more Americans. Big Tech and Big Government want the same thing → to control you. As a reminder, America is a land of FREEDOM.
Today I issued a Surgeon General's Advisory to call our country's attention to health misinformation - an urgent threat to our health that requires an all-of-society response. https://www.surgeongeneral.gov/ ... https://twitter.com/...
Each of us has the power to stop health misinformation in its tracks. So the next time you want to share a health-related article or video, check your sources and make sure the information is backed by scientific experts. If you're not sure, don't share. #NotSharingIsCaring https…
Psaki says the White House is working with social platforms to help get trusted content out, flagging misinformation and has proposed multiple changes to how COVID-19 information is monitored and measured on social platforms, including Facebook. https://twitter.com/...
Exactly what is the Surgeon General calling misinformation? Without specifics, he is guilty of his own accusation. His job is to provide the public information they need to make an informed choice. He should respect their intelligence and freedom. https://twitter.com/...
We all have the power and responsibility to confront health misinformation. That's why we included recommendations for individuals, educators, researchers, health professionals, tech companies, and more. Learn how you can act at https://surgeongeneral.gov/.... https://twitter.com…
The Biden administration is telling Facebook which posts it regards as “problematic” so that Facebook can remove them. This is the union of corporate and state power — one of the classic hallmarks of fascism — that the people who spent 5 years babbling about fascism support. http…
As I've documented before, the Supreme Court has ruled that the First Amendment's free speech guarantee is violated when government officials pressure or coerce private actors to censor for them. That is exactly what the Biden WH is doing with Facebook: https://greenwald.substack…
The most ironic part? CrowdTangle gathered some of the most adversarial tech reporters and connected them with Facebook product and policy employees and actual probably engendered goodwill. Like it was probably a net PR win. But short-sighted Growth execs were mad...about a list.
For the foreseeable future, this account is just a vehicle to retweet this story about how Facebook is choosing to nuke a team that actually increased understanding of the threats posed on Facebook because it slightly annoyed a handful of executives. https://twitter.com/...
Facebook's attack on Crowdtangle is significant, especially in light of its sustained assault on independent accountability and transparency tools like Ad Observer, a project from NYU's engineering school. https://pluralistic.net/... 10/
It's hard to overstate how deranged this is: surely Zuckerberg presents a different facet of his identity to his spouse, his kids, his shareholders, his co-workers and the press. It's not “two faced” to talk to your boss differently from how you talk to your lover. 24/
Facebook's desire to “control the narrative” is part of this intellectual tradition, and it's hardly the first time the company has done it. Early in the company's history, Zuckerberg defended his “real names” policy by saying that anyone who objected was “two-faced.” 23/
@Acyn @stephhegarty Mark Zuckerberg is now worth $129 billion, and he's gotten $74 billion richer in the pandemic. As long as people keep flocking to FB, that's all they care about.
CrowdTangle data shows what we already know: that right-wing disinformation and hate speech are rampant on @Facebook. The response? The company considers less transparency. When is Mark Zuckerberg going to realize Facebook doesn't have an image problem—Facebook is the problem?
If the White House is flagging “misinformation” on Facebook for Facebook to censor... doesn't that mean that FB is acting as an arm of the state in which case wouldn't free speech be constitutionally protected on the platform?
This is how communism starts. The White House is working with Facebook to censor your post which is violating your free speech because people want to discuss (on FB) a NON-FDA approved vaccine that the Biden admin wants to force you to take.
Today the @Surgeon_General classified misinformation as a public health danger. Purveyors of lies about vaccines are as dangerous as people who dump toxins in our lakes and rivers.
Part of my job is to team up w/ @DocEMurray and work with our @URMed_GCH staff to feel prepared & comfortable in working with media and social media to spread credible knowledge and combat misinformation. We're grateful to @GCHPedsChair for supporting this and for this message ⬇️…
In a new Surgeon General's Advisory, the Surgeon General is warning the American public about the urgent threat of health misinformation & calling for a whole-of-society approach to address health misinformation during the COVID-19 pandemic and beyond. https://www.hhs.gov/...
Thanks @Surgeon_General for your critically important leadership! We must all work together, with everything we have, to combat two interrelated public health crises: COVID and misinformation. Both have, and will continue, to kill us if we don't stop them. https://twitter.com/...
Tune in shortly to hear the Surgeon General speak to the urgent issue of addressing health misinformation. It is on all of us to do more to ensure every American can make an informed decision on the facts for their health. https://twitter.com/...
Health misinformation is literally killing us as a society. Glad that the @Surgeon_General is addressing this. Lack of health literacy is one thing (which also needs to be addressed), but flagrant articulation/amplification of misinformation is the scourge of #COVID19 times. http…
As @PressSec said, there's about 12 people who are producing 65% of the anti-vaccine misinformation on social media platforms. Addressing health misinformation saves lives. Thank you @Surgeon_General and @ewwaldo for your leadership. https://twitter.com/...
The Surgeon General's advisory on misinfo mostly just repeats the regular platitudes & avoids the hard qs but something that stuck out is that it stops short of calling on platforms to *take down* “misinformation” Outside the binary! You love to see it. https://www.hhs.gov/... ht…