President Biden’s surgeon general on Thursday used his first formal advisory to the United States to deliver a broadside against tech and social media companies, which he accused of not doing enough to stop the spread of dangerous health misinformation — especially about Covid-19.
The official, Dr. Vivek Murthy, declared health misinformation “an urgent threat to public health.”
Surgeons general have traditionally used their official advisories — short statements that call the American people’s attention to a public health issue and provide recommendations for how it can be addressed — to talk about health matters ranging from tobacco use to opioid addiction, suicide prevention and breastfeeding.
But Dr. Murthy’s advisory, a 22-page report with footnotes, occurs in a more political context. Fox News hosts like Tucker Carlson and Laura Ingraham, along with their guests, are among those who have been casting doubt on Covid-19 vaccines, which studies show are highly effective at preventing death and hospitalization from the disease.
Dr. Murthy couched criticism of tech companies in a broader declaration about the dangers of inaccurate and false information about health, including misinformation about coronavirus vaccination. His report called on all Americans to take pains to share accurate information, and said the United States needs “an all-of-society approach” to combat the problem.
But at Thursday’s White House press briefing, Dr. Murthy joined the White House press secretary, Jen Psaki, and made clear that tech and social media companies were his target, saying they have a singular responsibility to be more aggressive in fighting misinformation and citing Facebook by name.
Facebook, Twitter and YouTube said that they had taken steps to crack down on misleading health information, in line with their coronavirus misinformation policies. All three said they had introduced features to point people to authoritative health sources on their platforms.
YouTube said in a statement that it welcomed many takeaways of the surgeon general’s report. Twitter said it agreed with the surgeon general’s society-wide approach and welcomed his partnership. A person with knowledge of the matter who spoke on the condition of anonymity said officials with the company met with the surgeon general’s office on Monday.
“Modern technology companies have enabled misinformation to poison our information environment, with little accountability to their users,” Dr. Murthy said.
“We expect more from our technology companies,” he added. “We’re asking them to operate with greater transparency and accountability. We’re asking them to monitor misinformation, more closely.”
But calling out tech and media companies is tricky business, and the White House has danced around the question of whether it would try to regulate companies like Facebook that have become platforms for health disinformation. tropAsked about this at her Wednesday briefing, the White House press secretary, Jen Psaki, was noncommittal.
“Obviously, decisions to regulate or hold to account any platform would certainly be a policy decision,” she said. “But in the interim, we’re going to continue to call out disinformation and call out where that information travels.”
Health misinformation about social distancing, mask use, treatments and vaccines has been rampant during the coronavirus pandemic. The report is a sign that the Biden administration, faced with a steep decline in vaccination rates, is moving more forcefully to confront it. Fewer than 50 percent of Americans are fully vaccinated, and many top health experts have called for the president to do more to reach people who have yet to get shots.
While virus numbers remain at some of the lowest levels since the beginning of the pandemic, they are once again slowly rising, fueled by the spread of the more contagious Delta variant; vaccines are effective against the variant. Counties that voted for Mr. Biden average higher vaccination levels than those that voted for Donald Trump. Conservatives tend to decline vaccination far more often than Democrats.
The surgeon general’s report is assiduously apolitical, and does not name any specific purveyors of misinformation. But it comes as some Republican leaders, concerned that the virus is spreading quickly through conservative swaths of the country, are beginning to promote vaccination and speak out against media figures and elected officials who are casting doubt on vaccines.
Health misinformation is not a recent phenomenon — and is not limited to news media. In the 1990s, the report notes, “a poorly designed study” — later retracted — falsely claimed the measles, mumps, rubella vaccine causes autism. “Even after the retraction, the claim gained some traction and contributed to lower immunization rates over the next twenty years,” the report said.
It cites evidence of the spread of misinformation, including a study by the Kaiser Family Foundation that found, as of late May, that 67 percent of unvaccinated adults had heard at least one Covid-19 vaccine myth and either believed it to be true or were unsure of its truthfulness; and a Science Magazine analysis of millions of social media posts found that false news stories were 70 percent more likely to be shared than true stories.
Another recent study showed that even brief exposure to misinformation made people less likely to want a Covid-19 vaccine, the surgeon general said.
"Stop" - Google News
July 15, 2021 at 09:49PM
https://ift.tt/3hIFpiZ
Murthy Says Social Media Companies Not Doing Enough to Stop Covid Misinformation - The New York Times
"Stop" - Google News
https://ift.tt/2KQiYae
https://ift.tt/2WhNuz0
Bagikan Berita Ini
0 Response to "Murthy Says Social Media Companies Not Doing Enough to Stop Covid Misinformation - The New York Times"
Post a Comment