Biden Administration Pushes Social Media Companies to Combat COVID-19 ‘Misinformation’

White House press decretary Jen Psaki holds a press conference in Washington on July 12, 2021. Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images

The surgeon general of the United States is calling on Big Tech to crack down on so-called COVID-19 misinformation, in a report released on the same day the White House acknowledged that it’s flagging posts for Facebook.

Surgeon General Vivek Murthy told reporters in Washington that he targeted social media misinformation with his first advisory because it “poses an imminent and insidious threat to our nation’s health.”