The Biden-Facebook-GOP finger-pointing game

Facebook and the misinformation wars. The Biden administration is mad at Facebook. Facebook is mad right back. And Republicans, never ones to miss an outrage over social media, are joining in. We begin with surgeon general Dr. Vivek Murthy’s [public health advisory](, issued last week, which declared health misinformation to be a public health crisis because it’s scaring people away from getting Covid-19 vaccines. Social media, which has allowed misinformation to spread rampantly and frequently unchecked [in the past](, was singled out for particular scorn by Murthy and then White House press secretary Jen Psaki for not doing enough to stop misinformation on their platforms. And Facebook has taken the brunt of that criticism. Why Facebook? Well, Facebook has 2.85 billion monthly active users worldwide, and that doesn’t count its subsidiaries Instagram ([1 billion users]() and WhatsApp (about [2 billion users](). That’s a lot of access to a lot of eyeballs. Also, CNN [reported]( that there have been months of “tense” meetings between Biden officials and Facebook representatives over vaccine misinformation. The Wall Street Journal had a [similar take](, saying that private talks with Facebook weren’t going anywhere, so the White House decided it was time to make its frustrations more public. The next day, Biden [took things to another level]( by saying publicly that “platforms like Facebook” were “killing people.” That’s quite an accusation coming from a president who isn’t Trump, but Biden has made no secret of how he feels about Facebook, [telling the New York Times]( in late 2019: “I’ve never been a fan of Facebook, as you probably know. I’ve never been a big Zuckerberg fan. I think he’s a real problem.” He added that Facebook was “propagating falsehoods they know to be false,” and it was the government’s job to “make sure [technology] is not abused.” Turns out, Facebook doesn’t appreciate being accused of murder. On Saturday, it responded to Biden’s comment with a [blog post]( that highlighted what it has done to fight the pandemic and point users to official sources of information about the virus and its vaccines, and accused the Biden administration of blaming “a handful of social media companies” for its own failure to meet the [July 4 goal]( of vaccinating 70 percent of the adult population (the country is currently at [68.3 percent](). Biden has since [walked back]( his comments, saying on Monday that he meant that the [accounts spreading misinformation]( on social media are killing people. He added that Facebook should do something about those accounts and stop taking things so personally, a swipe that indicates that he remains displeased with the platform. Republicans have also joined the fray. Several Republican politicians and conservative outlets last week latched onto Psaki’s comments about flagging falsehoods to social media platforms, claiming that this means Biden’s administration is coordinating with or ordering Big Tech to censor speech, and that this [violates the First Amendment](. They also made comparisons to [communism]( and referenced the horrors of [cancel culture](, too. Simply put, Facebook is getting it from both sides for completely opposite reasons. It either isn’t doing enough and people are dying because of it, or it’s doing too much and working hand-in-glove with the United States’ new authoritarian regime. These kinds of critiques have become the standard response to almost everything Facebook does these days. That’s probably not much fun, but it may actually be the best place for Facebook. If Democrats and Republicans [can’t agree]( on how Facebook should be regulated, then it’ll be a long time before there are any regulations at all. And that probably suits Facebook just fine. —Sara Morrison, reporter [A hand holding a smartphone displaying iMessage. A table with coffee and fruit is visible in the background.]( Neil Godwin/Future via Getty Images [Don’t assume your iPhone is safe from hackers]( [The Pegasus spyware leak shows that iPhones are vulnerable to hacks, too.]( [Anderson Cooper stands in the CNN studio speaking with Don Lemon, who appears on a large screen.]( Getty Images for CNN [What is CNN+ and why would you pay for it?]( [The newest streaming service doesn’t make sense, but it’s what we’re doing now anyway.]( [A sign outside of one of Apple’s offices in Silicon Valley is a white square with a blue Apple logo.]( Smith Collection/Gado/Getty Images [Internal Apple letter shows employees are still fighting to work from home]( [A new petition says it’s “too early” to force employees back to the office and asks management for “greater flexibility.”](  [Learn more about RevenueStripe...]( [A person sits at a table with an open laptop computer, a phone plugged into it, a cup of coffee, and a small American flag on a self-standing stick.]( Getty Images [Most Americans like remote work — but Democrats like it more]( [Republicans are less likely to say remote workers labor just as hard as or harder than non-remote workers.]( [Vivek Murthy, the US surgeon general, speaks during a news conference and holds up a piece of paper that says, “confronting health misinformation.”]( Samuel Corum/CNP/Bloomberg via Getty Images [The surgeon general wants Facebook to do more to stop Covid-19 lies]( [Dr. Vivek Murthy considers social media misinformation to be a deadly public health threat.]( [This is cool] [Listen to the Recode Daily podcast.] [Bring on the 4-day workweek]( Are Americans ready to work less? 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