President Biden today clarified comments he made about Facebook "killing people" with misinformation, arguing that he was referring to those who are spreading false information on the platform, not Facebook itself.
"Sixty percent of all the misinformation came from 12 individuals," Biden said during a Monday event at the White House. "Facebook is not killing people, these 12 people who are out there giving misinformation...is killing people."
Biden was likely referring to a report from the Center for Countering Digital Hate, which called out the Disinformation Dozen. They are "12 anti-vaxxers who play leading roles in spreading digital misinformation about COVID vaccines," the report says. "They were selected because they have large numbers of followers, produce high volumes of anti-vaccine content or have seen rapid growth of their social media accounts in the last two months.
"Analysis of a sample of anti-vaccine content that was shared or posted on Facebook and Twitter a total of 812,000 times between 1 February and 16 March 2021 shows that 65% of anti-vaccine content is attributable to the Disinformation Dozen," the report added.
The controversy dates back to Friday, when a reporter asked Biden: "On COVID misinformation, what's your message to platforms like Facebook?"
"They're killing people," Biden responded. "The only pandemic we have is among the unvaccinated, and they're killing people."
The comments prompted a sharp rebuke from Facebook. "The fact is that vaccine acceptance among Facebook users in the US has increased. These and other facts tell a very different story to the one promoted by the administration in recent days," said Guy Rosen, Facebook's VP of Integrity, who suggested the White House was blaming Facebook for missing its vaccine goal.
"President Biden’s goal was for 70% of Americans to be vaccinated by July 4. Facebook is not the reason this goal was missed," Rosen said.
Today, Biden said that "my hope is, that Facebook, instead of taking it personally...would do something about the...outrageous misinformation about the vaccine. That’s what I meant."
Later, White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki insisted that "we're not in a war or a battle with Facebook, we’re in a battle with the virus."
"And the problem we’re seeing … is that disinformation, traveling through a range of social media platforms—some of them are media, some of them are through the mouths of public officials—that bad information … is killing people," Psaki said. "That’s where our concern is, and that’s what the president is working to express."
Asked what the White House is prepared to do to combat misinformation, Psaki said "I don’t think we’ve taken any options off the table; that’s up to Congress."