‘Not Enough’: Surgeon General Says Tech Giants Can Do More To Fight COVID Misinformation | Talking Points Memo

Surgeon General Vivek Murthy on Sunday doubled down on the Biden administration’s criticisms aimed at social media giants over the spread of COVID-19 disinformation, following President Biden’s remarks last week that Facebook is “killing people” by allowing misinformation about vaccines to proliferate on the platform.


This is a companion discussion topic for the original entry at https://talkingpointsmemo.com/?p=1381518

Phillies pitchers refusing shots say they’re “going to be careful”. They’ll miss a few starts too, due to possible exposure to infected individuals - but still get paid as if they were pitching.

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And there have been some positive steps taken by these technology companies

Deplatforming the liar-in-chief. Yay, I guess, but you could have done that years ago, the repeated violations of ToS were already there. What else have you done? Algorithms false-flagging legitimate discussion of unpleasant topics, reviewed by non-native speakers of english working for pennies?

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Refusing to take medicine that would keep them from dying is pretty much the logical extension of a lifetime of voting against their own best interests. What we have here is not a failure to communicate. It’s a pandemic of choice.

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Get vaccinated, idiots!

Or die, while taking a few of your elderly / infirm friends, relatives, neighbors with you. Or someone you cough on in a crowd.

Pro-life? My ass…

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I think what Murthy is contending with is that some folks that aren’t getting the vaccine are relying on false info. And nothing will change their minds. It goes along with a comment I made awhile back about how people don’t understand the scientific process. So they take the first pronouncement to mind, but not any subsequent updates. I associate this with religious intolerance, God’s word is God’s word and that’s that type of thing.
These people really make my head hurt. :exploding_head:

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That’s what my idiot sister says.

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“President Biden’s remarks last week that Facebook is ‘killing people’ by allowing misinformation about vaccines to proliferate on the platform.”

Facebook is a cancer.

Of derp-spewing, death-inducing, Kremlin-bot lies.

The sooner it dies, the better for humanity.

(The Surgeon General should put a cancer warning on Facebook.)

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And yet these folks don’t understand careful, they really don’t have @darrtown care procedures in place, nor are they willing to live like I do, almost hermit like-and that was before the pandemic.
And also saying that “they’ll be careful” sort of implies those who got it into “it was their own damn fault” category.

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I have a younger brother who, no matter how I plead with him, will not get a vaccine. And he lives in Florida. He’s a wonderful artist and a truly kind person, but yeah, he’s an idiot. He’s shut me out of his Facebook feed, which is just as well for my own mental health.

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Facebook is either a publisher of false information or it’s a technical conspirator to mislead the public. It can’t be both ways.

Slightly off-topic, has anyone considered that the loss of faith in medicine/vaccines coincides with the rise of obscene pharma ads? They’re prevalent, and obscene.

Product could cause stroke or death. Patients may feel a strong desire to wear masks. Not responsible for sudden insanity. Better than pot.

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I think she believes she’ll know if someone’s sick, but it doesn’t work like that.

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And there’s the Christian explanation for going to hell. God didn’t send you there - you did it to yourself.

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It politics or religion that explains most of it I think.
Not being owned by the libtards or demonstrating my faith in Jesus to protect me. One or the other.

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Does Anthony Fauci make you anxious and depressed?

Do you suffer from dangerous levels of melanin deficiency?

Do you long to repost misspelled hate-screeds about cities with populations above 200?

Ask your neighbor’s cousin’s sister-in-law Karen if Facebook™ is right for you.

(Zuckerbot Kremlanoline 35mg)

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A couple of years ago I read “The Weight of Ink” by Rachel Kadish and even longer ago I read “Year of Wonder” by Geraldine Brooks. Two books with plague as a condition in each story. But in each of these books that dealt with plague, plague was not unknown to these folks.
In the first book the rich left London for their country home, the poor had to fend for themselves, and it got really bad. In the second the small village where most of the story takes place agrees to shut themselves off from the world. My point is that in the past people knew what a plague/pandemic was. How bad it is, how it upends all facets of life. And I would venture to say that the times when each of the two books were set religion played a major party in society, and in people’s lives specifically.
People can’t tell who has the virus, who doesn’t, and it’s not like small pox where you can tell in what state of infection they’re in.

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The problem is those plagues killed most (all?) the people who contracted it. Covid only kills about 1.5% of folks who contract it. As a virus, that’s smart. If Covid killed half the people who get it, the lines would be forming for shots and likely be the end of Covid.
Viruses are smart that way. By killing only 1.5% of victims it outsmarts humanity - suckers.

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The virus is just toying with us. it will keep producing variants until it hits on the one that still won’t kill all of us because you know it needs us, but will keep culling the herd so to speak.
My anger is that there are people in countries that want it, but can’t get it. I think we are going to have to do the “if you are eligible for the vaccine, but don’t get within x amount of days” then we going to send your dose to S. America. And if you decide you want it then you’ll have pay for your shot(s) your self. And I don’t think health insurance should cover it.

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Except they won’t wear a mask or stay away from people or wash their hands or self isolate or get tested or listen to their doctor. Careful is a state of mind for some folks.

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