When a reporter asked President Biden what his message was to “platforms like Facebook” on the subject of “COVID misinformation,” the President said, “They’re killing people. The only pandemic we have is among the unvaccinated, and they’re killing people.” White House press secretary Jen Psaki admitted last Thursday that the White House is “flagging problematic posts” for Facebook to censor and added that the Biden administration is “in regular touch” with the platform to ensure that only “correct narratives” are promoted. She said, “There’s about 12 people who are producing 65 percent of anti-vaccine misinformation on social media platforms.” Since the beginning of the public health crisis, Facebook says it has removed over 18-million instances of “COVID-19 misinformation” but, apparently, that is not enough.

Missouri Senator Josh Hawley warned that big tech is “acting like arms of the government” after the White House admitted it is asking Facebook to censor anyone who posts content it deems to be “misinformation”. He said that, if the companies are taking direction from the federal government, openly coordinating censorship with them, and Big Tech carries out those instructions, then they should be regulated like public utilities. The latest development with Facebook comes on the heels of reports that the White House is trying the same thing with Twitter, and planning to work directly with cellphone network providers to ‘fact check’ private SMS messages if they contain “misinformation about vaccines.” — GEG

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