Facebook Is Killing People – Joe Biden – Free PDF Download

What has happened?

• US President Joe Biden has warned that the spread of Covid-19 misinformation on social media is “killing people“.

But why biden said that?

• He was responding to a question from a reporter about the alleged role of “platforms like Facebook” in spreading falsehoods about vaccines and the pandemic.
• “They’re killing people,” Mr Biden told reporters at the White House on Friday. “The only pandemic we have is among the unvaccinated.“
• The White House has been increasing pressure on social media companies to tackle disinformation.
• US health officials have warned that the country’s current spike in Covid-19 deaths and infections is exclusively hitting unvaccinated communities.

Pressure on social media

• The White House is turning up the pressure on social media companies to weed out what officials say is widely spread misinformation on coronavirus vaccinations.
• “There is a clear message that is coming through: this is becoming a pandemic of the unvaccinated,” Centers for Disease Control and Prevention director Rochelle Walensky told reporters on Friday.
• Many of those refusing vaccinations, despite the ease of availability throughout the United States, have said they do not trust the shots.

Why people are not trusting vaccines?

• Skepticism is being fueled both by false posts spread by anti-vaccine activists online and by Republican politicians claiming the vaccinations are part of attempts at government control.
• White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki said that Facebook and others are not doing enough to push back.
• “Everybody has a role to play in making sure there’s accurate information,” she said.
• Psaki said the White House was taking a more active approach in calling out what it sees as misinformation but insisted that Facebook in particular should react more quickly in taking down problematic posts.

Why specifically Facebook?

• “There’s about 12 people who are producing 65% of anti-vaccine misinformation on social media platforms. All of them remain active on Facebook, despite some even being banned on other platforms,” Psaki said.
• The White House has “proposed that they create a robust enforcement strategy that bridges their properties and provides transparency about the rules,” she said.

Criticism against biden

• The turning up of the volume against fake news immediately drew accusations from right-wing media that Biden was installing a “Big Brother” type surveillance over citizens’ opinions.

• Facebook says it has contracted an army of independent outside fact checkers, to try and clean up its content.
• “We will not be distracted by accusations which aren’t supported by the facts,” a Facebook spokesperson told.
• “The fact is that more than two billion people have viewed authoritative information about Covid-19 and vaccines on Facebook, which is more than any other place on the internet.
• More than 3.3 million Americans have also used our vaccine finder tool to find out where and how to get a vaccine. The facts show that Facebook is helping save lives.”
• Earlier, Facebook said it was taking “aggressive action against misinformation about Covid-19 and vaccines to protect public health,” and that-
• It had removed “more than 18 million pieces of Covid misinformation,” and disabled accounts spreading false information.

Cases in US

• The CDC reported more than 33,000 new cases in the United States on Thursday, bringing the seven-day average up to 26,306, a 70% rise on the week before.
• The seven-day average of hospital admissions is about 2,790 per day, an increase of 36%.
• The new wave is driven by the Delta variant, which now accounts for more than 80% of new cases.
• About 9% of US adults have received one dose of the vaccine, While 59.2% of adults are fully vaccinated.

Difference in Trump & Biden views

• Mr Trump and fellow Republicans believed Facebook was restricting free speech by cracking down on voter-fraud conspiracies.
• Mr Biden and his team have a different criticism – that Facebook doesn’t do enough to take down conspiracies – such as anti-vax content.

Q) To prevent the pathogens the first-line defense mechanism is called as?

1. Adaptive immunity
2. Innate immunity
3. Resistance
4. Defense

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