Facebook vs. the White House

The Daily

The New York Times

Daily News, News

4.4 • 102.8K Ratings

🗓️ 20 July 2021

⏱️ 24 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Is misinformation on Facebook an impediment to ending the pandemic? President Biden even said that platforms like Facebook, by harboring skepticism about the shots, were killing people. Facebook immediately rejected the criticism, but who is right? Guest: Cecilia Kang, a correspondent covering technology and regulatory policy for The New York Times.

Transcript

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0:00.0	From New York Times, I'm Michael Babaro. This is it, Aileen.
0:11.0	Today, the nasty battle between the Biden administration and Facebook,
0:17.0	over who is responsible for misinformation about the COVID-19 vaccine.
0:23.0	I spoke with my colleague Cecilia Kahn about whose right and what's at stake?
0:32.0	It's Tuesday, July 20th.
0:38.0	Cecilia, can you describe how this fight between the White House and Facebook has played out over the past few days?
0:46.0	Over the last few days, there's been a remarkable set of comments by the Biden administration and the White House
0:52.0	that really plays blame at social media companies like Facebook for being the biggest impediment to solving the pandemic.
1:01.0	Hello, everyone. How are you?
1:04.0	It started with the Surgeon General on Thursday, making a statement at the White House.
1:09.0	Today, I issued a Surgeon General's advisory on the dangers of health misinformation.
1:16.0	For the first time, issuing a public warning that misinformation related to COVID-19 vaccines was really preventing people from getting the vaccine and really one of the biggest obstacles to the White House's efforts.
1:31.0	The truth is that misinformation takes away our freedom to make informed decisions about our health and the health of our loved ones.
1:39.0	He said that the threats often come from what we eat, drink, and smoke. Today, we live in a world where misinformation poses an imminent and insidious threat to our nation's health.
1:50.0	We must confront misinformation as a nation.
1:53.0	Every one of us has the power and the responsibility to make a difference in this fight.
1:58.0	Lives are depending on it.
2:00.0	So he's saying that online misinformation about the COVID-19 vaccine is literally a public health crisis.
2:07.0	He is for the first time saying that speech and comments that are made on the internet have hopped over into real life and have caused real-world harm.
2:17.0	Thanks so much for your time, and I'll turn it to Jen.
2:20.0	And then right after the Surgeon General, Jen Socky, the White House press secretary, doubles down on his message.
2:27.0	There are also proposed changes that we have made to social media platforms, including Facebook.
	...

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