Bulletins

DC's attorney general wants Facebook's study on COVID-19 vaccine doubts

Karl Racine is probing if the company violated consumer protection laws, according to a Politico report.

​A health care worker is vaccinated against COVID-19
Community health centers are turning to text messages to urge patients to get a vaccine.
Photo: Scott Heins/Getty Images

The attorney general of Washington, D.C., is subpoenaing Facebook's internal investigation of doubts about COVID-19 vaccines, according to a Thursday report in POLITICO.

Karl Racine's office is probing whether Facebook's handling of COVID misinformation violated consumer protection laws, an investigation that had not been previously disclosed, the report said.

Racine is also demanding the company deliver "records identifying all groups, pages and accounts that have violated [Facebook's] policies against Covid-19 misinformation" by the end of the week, according to POLITICO.

White House Chief of Staff Ron Klain recently said the administration had found that Facebook is the most common source for misinformation that makes people unwilling to get vaccinated against COVID, and he said he'd personally told CEO Mark Zuckerberg about the problem.

Ben Brody

Ben Brody (@ BenBrodyDC) is a senior reporter at Protocol focusing on how Congress, courts and agencies affect the online world we live in. He formerly covered tech policy and lobbying (including antitrust, Section 230 and privacy) at Bloomberg News, where he previously reported on the influence industry, government ethics and the 2016 presidential election. Before that, Ben covered business news at CNNMoney and AdAge, and all manner of stories in and around New York. He still loves appearing on the New York news radio he grew up with.

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