DENY THE DENIERS

Psaki: COVID Deniers Banned From One Social Network Should Be Booted From Them All

“You shouldn’t be banned from one platform and not others for providing misinformation out there,” press secretary Jen Psaki said Friday.

White House press secretary Jen Psaki said Friday that the Biden administration believes social media users who spread COVID-19 misinformation should be banned from all platforms if one platform has given them the boot. Psaki had revealed the day before that White House staff were tracking dangerous coronavirus misinformation with help from the surgeon general’s office and flagging problematic posts to Facebook.

When asked follow-up questions on Friday, she said there were several steps that the Biden administration believed “could be constructive for public health.” For example, she said, social media platforms should measure and publicly share the impact of misinformation, they should take faster action against harmful posts, they should promote quality information through algorithms, and they should “create robust enforcement strategies that bridge their properties and provide transparency about rules. You shouldn’t be banned from one platform and not others for providing misinformation out there.”