Since the Biden administration considers “medical misinformation” a public health threat, White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki admitted the administration is playing an active role in flagging Facebook posts considered to be “problematic” or “misinformation.”
During a Thursday press conference, Psaki said White House senior staff were engaging with “social media platforms” to combat the spread of “misinformation specifically on the pandemic.”
“In terms of actions we are taking or that we’re working to take, I should say, from the federal government, we’ve increased disinformation research and tracking within the surgeon general’s office. We’re flagging problematic posts for Facebook that spread disinformation,” she said. In addition to directing the company to censor people, the government is also working to “get trusted content out there” by putting doctors and medical professionals in touch with social media influencers. “We also created the COVID-19 community cord to get trusted information into the hands of local messengers,” Psaki said.
Psaki revealed that most of the “vaccine misinformation,” or about 65 percent of it, on social-media platforms was originating from “12 people,” but she did not identify any people or pages. She also complained that Facebook is not working fast enough to purge “harmful violative posts,” and added that such posts “often remain up for days — that’s too long.”
Psaki’s admission came after Surgeon General Vivek Murthy issued an advisory declaring misinformation “an imminent and insidious threat to our nation’s health.”
“Misinformation takes away our freedom to make informed decisions about our health and the health of our loved ones,” Murthy said at the White House. During just the COVID-19 pandemic, he said, it has led to Americans refusing to wear masks, “turn down proven treatments” and choosing not to get vaccinated.
The advisory states that as of late May, 67 percent of unvaccinated adults had heard at least one “COVID-19 vaccine myth” and either believed it to be true or were not sure of its veracity. “Health misinformation has already caused significant harm, dividing families and communities and undermining vaccination efforts,” the paper goes. It is said that analysis of “millions of social media posts” found that “false news stories” were 70 percent more likely to be shared than “true stories.” The administration is worried that “even brief exposure to misinformation made people less likely to want a COVID-19 vaccine.”
Health misinformation is defined by the surgeon general as information that is false, inaccurate, or misleading — “according to the best available evidence.” That disclaimer speaks volumes, since medical “evidence” has changed on numerous occasions during the pandemic. Regarding one of the most discussed “protective” measures — face masks — the “science” has been ever-changing, and was channeled to the public by the “trusted scientists” who flip-flopped on their recommendations with no reservations, arguing that the “available evidence” had changed. Thus, “available evidence” is fluid, but censorship is constant.
Such “evidence” on vaccines’ safety and efficacy may be just as ambiguous. There are reports of fully vaccinated people catching COVID-19 and dying from it; young men developing higher chances of getting heart inflammation — a fact confirmed by the CDC and FDA; there are also hundreds of cases of vaccines causing blood issues. There is even a warning from a developer of the mRNA technology, Dr. Richard Malone, who said that the mRNA is actually bioactive and cytotoxic, i.e. it damages and kills cells. The “science” behind the vaccines is far from being “settled,” but the Biden administration seems determined to crack down on any information that contradicts the “vaccines are safe and effective” orthodoxy.
In late May, the conservative media watchdog organization Project Veritas published a purported internal Facebook memo concerning “Vaccine Hesitancy Comment Demotion.” The policy aims to “drastically reduce user exposure to vaccine hesitancy,” the document states. The New American covered the story here.
One of the documents leaked to Project Veritas discusses how to flag and categorize “non-violating content” that “raises questions about vaccination … thereby contributing to vaccine hesitancy or refusal.”
Such “problematic” posts include “shocking stories” about side effects linked to COVID vaccines. Such stories may deter others from taking the vaccine — even if they’re “potentially or actually true events or facts that raise safety concerns.” Under that policy, a story of a 13-year-old boy who died in his sleep after receiving his second dose of the Pfizer/BioNTech COVID vaccine and whose death is now officially being investigated by the CDC is considered “indirect vaccine discouragement.” Same goes for the story of a 65-year-old man who developed so-called vaccine-induced thrombosis and thrombocytopenia (VITT), or thrombocytopenia with thrombosis syndrome (TTS), 10 days after receiving his second Moderna jab, and died. His diagnosis is recorded in Annals of Internal Medicine, but it is still a no-go for Facebook, and may be classified and flagged as “problematic” information — even though it is true — by the White House.
Facebook is also said to target comments that claim vaccination is unnecessary owing to plummeting COVID-19 cases and death rates, or argue for natural herd immunity against the virus. Such views are also considered “indirect discouragement” that could hurt immunization efforts.
