Biden: Social media ‘killing people’ with COVID misinformation | Al Jazeera

President Joe Biden has said that social media companies are “killing people” by failing to police misinformation on their platforms about COVID-19 vaccines.

Biden’s comments came a day after US Surgeon General Vivek Murthy declared misinformation about the vaccines a threat to public health and as US officials advised that deaths and serious illness from the virus are almost entirely preventable because of the vaccines.

Biden, asked if he had a message for platforms like Facebook where false or misleading information about the coronavirus vaccines has spread, told reporters on Friday:  “They’re killing people.”

“The only pandemic we have is among the unvaccinated,” he said.

Speaking on Thursday, Murthy said misinformation about COVID-19, deemed an “infodemic” by the World Health Organization (WHO), was deadly.

“Misinformation poses an imminent and insidious threat to our nation’s health,” Murthy said during remarks on Thursday at the White House. “We must confront misinformation as a nation. Lives are depending on it.”