Now that we have fulfilled our original quest to “slow the spread” of the coronavirus, the surgeon general wants to “slow the spread” of a different kind of pandemic: misinformation.
Today, Surgeon General Vivek Murthy issued an advisory titled “Confronting Health Misinformation.” He implored people to “help slow the spread of health misinformation during the COVID-19 pandemic and beyond.”
In new report on COVID misinformation, the @Surgeon_General recommends big tech “impose clear consequences for accounts that repeatedly violate platform policies.” https://t.co/V6h0GP4BcR pic.twitter.com/KItofTn0LO
— Philip Melanchthon Wegmann (@PhilipWegmann) July 15, 2021
To “slow the spread,” Murthy suggested that Big Tech companies impose “clear consequences for accounts that repeatedly violate platform policies.” Tech platforms have already crafted content moderation policies during the pandemic. And on multiple occasions, the social media giants restricted and banned content on COVID-19 that was later proven to be true.
One clear-cut example was Big Tech’s knee-jerk reaction to hydroxychloroquine. Facebook briefly suspended the account of the conservative group Prager University for sharing a video of doctors touting the benefits of the anti-malaria drug in some COVID-19 patients. In July 2020, Twitter restricted the account of Donald Trump Jr. for sharing the same video.
Since then, however, a study has found that hydroxychloroquine, paired with azithromycin, could increase COVID-19 survival rates by nearly 200% in ventilated patients with severe cases of the disease.
Facebook may have also censored users questioning the efficacy and safety of mask mandates for children. Jennifer Horton, a plaintiff in former President Donald Trump’s class-action lawsuit against Big Tech, shared an article on Facebook challenging the efficacy and safety of masks for children. Her account was allegedly suspended for 24 hours. Trump’s lawsuit claims that Horton was notified that her suspension was due to her post on masks.
However, scientific studies have since vindicated Horton’s skepticism of mask mandates for children. First off, children are less likely to spread the virus than adults. And in Sweden, where there was no mask mandate for children, pediatric death rates were the same before and during the pandemic. If anything, evidence suggests that forcing children to wear masks may elevate carbon dioxide levels in their inhaled air.
And let’s not forget Big Tech’s efforts to downplay speculation surrounding the now-infamous Wuhan Institute of Virology. In September 2020, Twitter temporarily suspended the account of Chinese virologist Li-Meng Yan, who claimed that the novel coronavirus came from a “research laboratory.” And as recently as this May, Facebook added fact-check warnings to content featuring Nicholas Wade’s article on Medium about the lab leak theory, which, at this point, most everyone admits is likely true. In May, the Biden administration announced that it was actively investigating the lab leak hypothesis. Even Dr. Anthony Fauci has reversed course, telling PolitiFact that he was no longer fully confident that the virus developed naturally. (There was never much evidence that it had.)
As more facts came to light, Facebook announced that it will no longer remove the claim that “COVID-19 is man-made or manufactured.” Wow, gee, thanks!
Not all information shared during the pandemic and censored by Big Tech was true. For example, Trump’s supposedly sarcastic comments on injecting bleach should not be taken seriously. Yet time and time again, Big Tech’s attempts to block misinformation have prevented the public from having access to accurate or at least plausible viewpoints and theories.
Given their past failures, it is clear that these tech companies cannot serve as the arbiters of scientific truth. When new research comes out every day, social media platforms shouldn’t “impose consequences” on users simply because they have a different point of view.
