Elisabeth Nieshalla
https://www.cnsnews.com/article/washington/elisabeth-nieshalla/sen-braun-facebook-and-biden-working-suppress-covid-info
(CNS News) — When asked whether the Biden Administration should work with Facebook to suppress postings it considers vaccine misinformation, Sen. Mike Braun (R-Ind.) said it is “problematic” because the platform would be “taking a political point of view.”
At the U.S. Capitol on Tuesday, the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee held a hearing to question Dr. Anthony Fauci about the COVID-19 vaccine and the origins of the virus.
Upon exiting the hearing, CNS News asked the senator, who is a committee member, “Should the Biden administration work with Facebook to suppress any postings it considers vaccine misinformation?”
Sen. Braun said, “I just asked that question in the committee hearing. So, when it comes to Facebook and the administration working together, flagging issues like that, I think it’s problematic because that means that they’re being selective in what they want to do. And if they’re working with the administration, they’re taking a political point of view along with it.”
President Joe Biden was asked on Friday, July 16, about social media platforms like Facebook and the alleged spread of COVID-19 vaccine misinformation.
“They’re killing people,” Biden claimed. “The only pandemic we have is among the unvaccinated, and they’re killing people.”
White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki told CNS News during her press conference on Monday that the White House has “not asked Facebook to block any individual posts,” but the Biden administration “certainly raised where we have concerns about information that’s inaccurate, that is traveling out there in whatever platform it’s traveling on.”
On July 16, Psaki said the administration is “in regular touch with these social media platforms, and those engagements typically happen through members of our senior staff, but also members of our COVID-19 team, given, as [U.S. Surgeon General] Dr. Murthy conveyed, this is a big issue of misinformation, specifically on the pandemic.”
As the federal government, she said, “We’ve increased disinformation research and tracking within the Surgeon General’s office. We’re flagging problematic posts for Facebook that spread disinformation.”
“You shouldn’t be banned from one platform and not others, uh – if you – for providing misinformation out there,” said Psaki.
Rep. Thomas Massie (R-Ky.) responded to her comments by stating on Twitter, “Her statement makes it abundantly clear they want people banned for simply disagreeing with the government’s pre-approved narrative.”
