Biden: American social media platforms 'killing people'

US President Joe Biden has said that American social media companies, such as Facebook, that allow coronavirus misinformation to spread on their platforms are “killing people.”

On Friday afternoon, Biden was asked during a press conference at the White House what his message is to social media platforms on the spread of inaccurate information about COVID-19 vaccines.

“They’re killing people. The only pandemic we have is among the unvaccinated. And they’re killing people,” the US president said.

Amid the Biden administration’s efforts to get more Americans vaccinated, US surgeon General Vivek Murthy issued an advisory on Thursday describing health misinformation as an “urgent threat”.

Murthy blamed "health misinformation" on social media for vaccine hesitancy despite vaccinations being widely available, and called for a whole-of-society effort to combat the misinformation problem.

“Modern technology companies have enabled misinformation to poison our information environment with little accountability to their users,” Murthy told reporters at the White House on Thursday. “They’ve allowed people who intentionally spread misinformation — what we call ‘disinformation’ — to have extraordinary reach.”

Meanwhile, White House press secretary Jen Psaki said on Friday the Biden administration has asked Facebook and other social media companies to be more active in removing “harmful” posts that spread disinformation about coronavirus vaccines.

“We are regularly making sure social media platforms are aware of the latest narratives dangerous to public health that we and many other Americans are seeing across all of social and traditional media and we work to engage with them to better understand the enforcement of social media platform policies,” Psaki told reporters.

Providing an example of false information, Psaki noted the rumors on social media that coronavirus vaccines cause infertility.

“We want to know that the social media platforms are taking steps to address it,” Psaki said. “That is inaccurate, false information.”

Facebook, however, has rejected criticism about its efforts to combat coronavirus misinformation, saying, "We will not be distracted by accusations which aren’t supported by the facts."

"The fact is that more than 2 billion people have viewed authoritative information about COVID-19 and vaccines on Facebook, which is more than any other place on the internet. More than 3.3 million Americans have also used our vaccine finder tool to find out where and how to get a vaccine,” Facebook spokesperson Dani Lever said in a statement.

"The facts show that Facebook is helping save lives. Period," Lever claimed.

Deadly Delta COVID-19 variant spreading fast in US

The deadly Delta COVID-19 variant is spreading fast in the United States.

The Biden administration’s push to combat disinformation comes as the vaccination rate has slowed across the United States and the more contagious delta variant has spread among unvaccinated people.

The director of the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Rochelle Walensky, warned on Friday that COVID-19 is “becoming a pandemic of the unvaccinated.”

"We are seeing outbreaks of cases in parts of the country that have low vaccination coverage, because unvaccinated people are at risk,” Walensky told reporters.

Coronavirus infections rising across US, new data shows

The United States has seen a nearly 50-percent spike in Covid-19 infections this week compared to last week.

The United States saw a nearly 50-percent spike in Covid-19 infections last week compared to the week before.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention maintains that 99 percent of the cases occur in those not vaccinated.

According to official estimates, over half of the United States’ population have been fully vaccinated.

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