- US President Joe Biden said that vaccine misinformation on platforms such as Facebook is “killing”.
- Facebook responded that since April 2020, its users’ hesitation about vaccines has dropped by 50%.
- Facebook said that Biden tried to blame it on its failure to achieve the 60% vaccination target in the United States by July 4.
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Facebook is hitting back at Joe Biden’s claim that social media sites are responsible for vaccine hesitation.
The President of the United States said on Friday, Social media platforms such as Facebook are “killing” By allowing vaccine misinformation to spread.
Guy Rosen, Facebook’s vice president of integrity, issued the company’s full rebuttal in a statement Blog post on Saturday.
“In fact, the acceptance of vaccines by Facebook users in the United States has increased. These and other facts are very different from what the government has promoted in recent days,” Rosen said.
Rosen said that since April 2020, Facebook has been cooperating with Carnegie Mellon University and the University of Maryland to survey its users and has collected 70 million responses so far.
“For Americans on Facebook, vaccine hesitation has dropped by 50%; they are getting more and more vaccines every day,” Rosen said.
Rosen also specifically targeted Biden’s goal of vaccinating 70% of American adults by July 4.
“Data shows that 85% of Facebook users in the United States have or want to be vaccinated against Covid-19. President Biden’s goal is to vaccinate 70% of Americans by July 4. Facebook is not the reason why this goal was missed. “Rosen said.
As of Sunday, 56% of adults The vaccine has been vaccinated in the United States.
Facebook previously told Inside story In a statement, the Biden administration used it as a “scapegoat.”In his blog post, Rosen outlined various initiatives taken by Facebook to support vaccines, including introducing Special rules about error messages Revolve around vaccines and build Vaccine pop-up clinic.
Although it is difficult to measure the direct impact of vaccine misinformation, in March, the Center for Anti-Digital Hate (CCDH) published a report stating that most Anti-vaxx error messages are only spread through a dozen accountsAccording to CCDH data, these 12 accounts have 59 million fans worldwide, of which Facebook has the largest share.
Among these 12 accounts are Robert F Kennedy Jr and the nephew of John F Kennedy. Facebook closed Kennedy’s Instagram account February, but not his Facebook page.
CCDH CEO Imran Ahmed told Inside story In February of this year, in order to properly combat vaccine misinformation, Facebook needs to completely de-platform big-name misinformation disseminators like Kennedy.
