Biden Crumbles After Reporter Confronts Him About ‘Facebook is Killing People’ Remark
After Facebook’s strong pushback against his accusation that it is “killing people”, Joe Biden backed off .
On Monday, one reporter asked him about this hyperbolic statement, and Biden responded to it.
The reporter said:
“Mr. President, you said last week that companies like Facebook are killing people.”
Joe replied:
“I know precisely what I said. I am glad you asked me that question. One, I had just read that Facebook pointed out — it was pointed out that Facebook of all the misinformation, 60 percent of the misinformation came from 12 individuals. That’s what the article said.
So I was asked that question about what do I think is happening? Facebook isn’t killing people. These 12 people are out there giving misinformation. Anyone listening to it is getting hurt by it. It is killing people. It’s bad information.”
He added:
“My hope is that Facebook instead of taking it personally that somehow I am saying that Facebook is killing people that they would do something about the misinformation. The outrageous misinformation about the vaccine. That’s what I meant.”
The reporter pressed:
“Have they done enough in your opinion to stop —”
Joe confessed:
“To be completely honest with you, I don’t think they did anything today, up to — over the weekend I don’t think they had, but I don’t know. I don’t know the answer to that question.”
“Will you hold them accountable as they don’t do more to stop the spread?” – the reporter added.
Biden explained:
“When you say hold accountable, I just want to — I’m not trying to hold people accountable, I’m trying to make people to look at themselves. Look in the mirror. Think about that misinformation going to your son, your daughter, your relative, someone you love. That’s all I am asking.”
This is Joe’s answer to a loaded question that risked exposing his intention to violate the First Amendment rights of Americans.
Contrary to the widespread misperception, even the government working with private companies to censor Americans violates the First Amendment.
(Thread 1/3): Joined @JacquiHeinrich and @ChristopherHahn on @FoxNews today to discuss the @WhiteHouse doubling down on censorship and @JoeBiden saying #Facebook is killing people. This is unconstitutional, it violates the #FirstAmendment, and it needs to stop. pic.twitter.com/ShKfEVvP51
— Harmeet K. Dhillon (@pnjaban) July 17, 2021
On Saturday, The Liberty Center’s Harmeet Dhillon explained why:
“This is unconstitutional, it violates the First Amendment, and it needs to stop.”
After President Biden accused Facebook of ‘killing people’ because it isn’t censoring enough COVID ‘misinformation’ at the behest of the U.S. government, the social media network released a statement on Friday:
Pres. Biden didn't mince words when asked for his message to platforms like Facebook about COVID-19 misinformation. https://t.co/Glb7dElkzy
— ABC News (@ABC) July 16, 2021
“We will not be distracted by accusations which aren’t supported by the facts. The fact is that more than 2 billion people have viewed authoritative information about COVID-19 and vaccines on Facebook, which is more than any other place on the Internet.
More than 3.3 million Americans have also used our vaccine finder tool to find out where and how to get a vaccine. The facts show that Facebook is helping save lives. Period.”
The U.S. government and Facebook have been working together to fight “misinformation” online, but this shows they cannot even agree on the truth behind a single public statement by the president.
Isn’t it ironic in a time when a private company teams up with the U.S. government to become the sole arbiters of “truth” in a public information space?
Facebook practically stated that Biden’s statement is ‘fake news.’
The whole thing started on Friday when Biden lashed out at Facebook for not doing enough to censor COVID information.
A reporter asked:
“On misinformation, what’s your message to platforms like Facebook?”
Biden said:
“They’re killing people. I mean they’re really… look..The only pandemic we have is among the unvaccinated. And they’re killing people.”
On Thursday, Jen Psaki had argued that critics of COVID policies and vaccines should be censored on Facebook. She disclosed that the White House is “in regular touch with social media platforms” to censor what they deem is ‘misinformation.’
She explained:
“We are in regular touch with the social media platforms and those engagements typically happen through members of our senior staff and also members of our COVID-19 team — given, as Dr. Murthy conveyed, this is a big issue, of misinformation, specifically on the pandemic.”
The next day, she went a step further and stated that critics should be censored on all social media platforms, which she even called “public platforms”:
“Also with the public, all of you, to create robust enforcement strategies that provide transparency about rules. You should not be banned from one platform and not others if you are providing misinformation out there.”
A week before, Psaki argued that critics of Biden’s door-to-door vaccine check program were similarly guilty of ‘killing people’:
“Well, let me first say that the failure to provide accurate public health information, including the efficacy of vaccines, and the accessibility of them to people across the country… is literally killing people.”
This is a rhetorical tactic being wielded to silence Americans.
It seems that the Biden White House knows it’s on shaky legal terrain, and started to walk its public statements back.
Source:
