Tag: misinfomation

Facebook rejects “disinformation dozen” narrative (censors them anyway)

In a company blog post, Facebook has addressed and rejected a theory spread by the media and politicians in the US that only 12 people are responsible for as much as 73 percent of what is considered online vaccine misinformation.

The 12 users have been censored anyway, but Facebook is pushing back against the claim that this is what it takes to deal with what the post said is a global problem of coronavirus vaccine misinformation.

Facebook says that the claim about the 12 key “superspreaders of misinformation” is a narrative (the company avoided referring to this narrative as false, using instead the term, “faulty”) that has not passed the test when confronted by evidence.

Nevertheless, Facebook reaffirmed that it has a zero tolerance policy toward what it happens to identify as vaccine misinformation, and announced that more than three dozen pages, groups and Facebook and Instagram accounts linked to the 12 persons have been removed.

The reason given is that these pages and accounts violated Facebook’s policies.

In addition, almost two dozen other pages, groups and accounts have been penalized for their links to the 12 – although logic dictates that they have not been found in violation of Facebook’s policies.

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‘Alarmed And Suspicious’: Senators Tell Biden To Explain Crackdown On ‘Misinformation’

Members of the Senate warned President Biden that his policy of coordinating with social media companies to flag “misinformation” violates Americans’ First Amendment rights.

As The Daily Wire previously reported, White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki recently said that users “shouldn’t be banned from one platform and not others” if they post “misinformation online.” She also revealed that the Biden administration is “flagging problematic posts for Facebook that spread disinformation.”

Last week, President Biden alleged that Facebook is “killing people” by allowing a particular subset of users to spread their views about COVID-19.

“These twelve people are out there giving misinformation. Anyone listening to it is getting hurt by it. It’s killing people. It’s bad information,” Biden said. “My hope is that Facebook, instead of taking it personally, that somehow I’m saying Facebook is killing people, that they would do something about the misinformation, the outrageous misinformation about the vaccine.”

In response, a letter sent to the Commander-in-Chief on Monday by Sen. Ron Johnson (R-WI) — joined by Mike Lee (R-UT), Rand Paul (R-KY), Mike Braun (R-IN), Roger Marshall (R-KS), Kevin Cramer (R-ND), Rick Scott (R-FL), James Lankford (R-OK), and Tommy Tuberville (R-AL) — cited Psaki’s statements and expressed concern that the Biden administration’s policy toward “misinformation” is unavoidably partisan.

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Surgeon General says “equity” is the reason COVID “misinformation” needs to be censored online

In his address on the administration’s concerns about online health “misinformation” surrounding the pandemic, Biden’s Surgeon General Vivek Murthy said the misinformation concerns were focused on “equity.”

The White House has come under fire for its plans for a direct approach regarding online censorship, especially when it emerged that it was flagging posts on Facebook.

“Misinformation is a threat to our health, and the speed, scale and sophistication with which it is spreading is unprecedented,” Murthy said in the Thursday morning address. “I will not hesitate to say that and to call for greater accountability and action to address health misinformation.”

“A word about equity though,” he continued. “We recognize that equity must be at the center of our work to confront health misinformation. Here’s why: Because unequal access to the health care system, education and technology, means that some people have less access to accurate health information than others. And when those people instead encounter health misinformation, it can worsen their health outcomes, which exacerbates health inequity in what becomes a vicious cycle.”

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Democrats’ Definition Of ‘Misinformation’ Is Whatever Hurts Them Politically Today

Facebook is killing people, misinformation is rampant, and the only people who can save us from ourselves are the all-wise executives at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue whose judgment is infallible and whose motives are pure. That’s the message emanating from the White House and the corporate press.

White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki announced last week that, due to 12 unnamed people on social media posting what the Biden administration considers to be misinformation, the White House is actively “flagging problematic posts for Facebook that spread disinformation” and “helping” to “boost trusted content.” Going even further, Psaki said nothing is “off the table” for using Big Tech to quiet opposing views.

Not only is the Biden administration effectively deputizing Facebook to be an extension of the federal government’s communications office, but it also insists that if you’re banned from one Big Tech site for questioning conventional wisdom, you should be banned from all of them.

Psaki maintains the government has “a responsibility, as a public health matter, to raise that issue” of people allegedly dying en masse because of uncensored Facebook posts that don’t comport with the White House’s vaccine messaging. This isn’t a caricature of the White House’s position either. When a reporter asked President Joe Biden directly last week what his message is to sites like Facebook, Biden replied, serious as a heart attack, “They’re killing people.”

This push for censorship is interesting for several reasons, not the least of which is the fact that the same political stripe that ridiculously cried “fascism” for four years under Donald Trump is now taking concrete steps to suppress political opposition, one of the hallmarks of true fascism. It’s also interesting because information changes so rapidly, as Psaki herself admitted.

“Science evolves, information evolves,” Psaki said during the same press conference in which she pledged her commitment to silencing vaccine dissidents online. If anyone should understand the reality of information evolving, it’s the Biden administration.

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Vice President’s Team Caught Spreading Misinformation Surrounding Kamala Harris Coronavirus Test

White House spokesperson for Vice President Kamala Harris, Symone Sanders, was caught spreading misinformation on Monday regarding the vice president’s coronavirus test.

During the White House press briefing on Monday afternoon, press secretary Jen Psaki said that Harris had been tested for the coronavirus and that there was no detection of the coronavirus, attributing the information to the vice president’s office.

“I think the Vice President’s Office put out that she was tested, and that she did — there was no detection of COVID-19,” she said.

But that was not what the vice president’s office had said in a statement Sanders released on Saturday night.

In that statement, Sanders wrote that Harris and her staff “do not need to be tested” after meeting with Texas state lawmakers on Tuesday — even though some of them tested positive for the virus.

Sanders’ full statement read:

On Tuesday, July 13th, Vice President Harris met with members of the Texas state legislature who are temporarily in Washington, D.C. Earlier today, it was brought to our attention that two of the members at that meeting tested positive for COVID-19. Based on the timeline of these positive tests, it was determined the Vice President and her staff present at the meeting were not at risk of exposure because they were not in close contact with those who tested positive and therefore do not need to be tested or quarantined. The Vice President and her staff are fully vaccinated.

When Politico’s West Wing Playbook questioned the vice president’s office about the potential conflict, Sanders responded that both of the statements were true.

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The False and Exaggerated Claims Still Being Spread About the Capitol Riot

What took place at the Capitol on January 6 was undoubtedly a politically motivated riot. As such, it should not be controversial to regard it as a dangerous episode. Any time force or violence is introduced into what ought to be the peaceful resolution of political conflicts, it should be lamented and condemned.

But none of that justifies lying about what happened that day, especially by the news media. Condemning that riot does not allow, let alone require, echoing false claims in order to render the event more menacing and serious than it actually was. There is no circumstance or motive that justifies the dissemination of false claims by journalists. The more consequential the event, the less justified, and more harmful, serial journalistic falsehoods are.

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