“They’re killing people,” Biden said, raising eyebrows, during an impromptu exchange with a group of reporters at South Lawn of the White House on Friday when he was questioned about the unvaccinated people possibly seeing disinformation on the platform, Facebook. “I mean they really, look, the only pandemic we have is among the unvaccinated, and they’re killing people.”.
Facebook on Friday responded after President Joe Biden claimed the technology giant is “killing people. They released a statement saying that they will not be distracted by accusations from President Biden which aren’t supported by the facts. And again the fact is that more than 2 billion people have viewed authoritative information about COVID-19 and vaccines on Facebook, which surpasses any other place on the Internet. The Facebook statement also added, “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. Period.”.
Soon after, an unnamed official told NBC News reporter Dylan Byers via Twitter. “In private exchanges, the Surgeon General has praised our work, including our efforts to inform people about COVID-19. They knew what they were doing. The White House is looking for scapegoats for missing their vaccine goals.”
The dust up came in the same week White House press secretary Jen Psaki posited that the administration, through the U.S. Surgeon General’s Office, was “flagging” people’s posts that they saw as spreading wrong information about the corona virus and the covid vaccines.