President Joe Biden's administration is "reviewing" whether to try to alter Sec. 230 in order to tackle COVID-19 vaccine misinformation on social media sites like Facebook and Twitter, according to the White House communications director.
"Certainly they should be held accountable," Kate Bedingfield said of the digital platforms in an interview Tuesday with MSNBC when asked about the spread of falsities and the controversial provision of U.S. law that shields platforms from lawsuits over user content.
Biden, who has previously criticized Sec. 230, and his administration have been escalating their criticism of online platforms over the spread of vaccine misinformation as the U.S. struggles with the newly-contagious Delta variant and vaccine uptake has slowed significantly.
Biden had appeared to tell reporters last week that Facebook was "killing people," although he walked the comments back on Monday, suggesting they were aimed at the people spreading misinformation. Facebook had pushed back, highlighting its efforts to surface reliable information on the vaccines. The surgeon general also recently called out health misinformation on social media.
Bedingfield said in the interview that responsibility also lies with "people creating the content" and traditional news media amplifying it.
"It is a big and complicated ecosystem, and everybody bears responsibility to ensure that we are not providing people with bad information about a vaccine that will save their lives," she said.
Any change to Sec. 230, which platforms have generally fought, would have to go through Congress.
Climate TRACE's data show emissions at the facility-level.Image: Climate TRACE