Zuckerberg Regrets Censoring Covid Content, But Disinformation Threatens Public Health, Not Free Speech

In a letter this week to Republican House Oversight Committee Chairman Jim Jordan, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg wrote that his teams were “pressured” by the Biden White House to censor some content about Covid-19. In response, the White House released the following statement: “When confronted with a deadly pandemic, this Administration encouraged responsible actions to protect public health and safety. Our position has been clear and consistent: we believe tech companies and other private actors should take into account the effects their actions have on the American people, while making independent choices about the information they present.”

The Growing Threat Of Disinformation

On the fourth anniversary of the COVID-19 pandemic, I posted a commentary that identified disinformation as the top threat to Americans’ health. In contrast to misinformation—the sharing of false claims without intending to deceive—disinformation is deliberately planted and spread to achieve economic, political, or strategic goals. The pandemic amplified both problems.

In the spring of 2020, only two months after the World Health Organization declared COVID-19 a global pandemic, Carnegie Mellon University researchers reported that more than 80% of the top 50 influential retweeters of coronavirus posts were bots. Wikipedia defines an internet bot as a software application designed to “run automated tasks (scripts) on the Internet, usually with the intent to imitate human activity, such as messaging, on a large scale.” It is likely that many of the bots CMU identified were created in Russia or China.

The following year, roughly the same time Mr. Zuckerberg reports being “pressured” by the Biden White House, the non-partisan RAND Corporation released a report entitled, “Reining in COVID-19 Disinformation from China, Russia, and Elsewhere.”

Two paragraphs are instructive:

“Our most important finding was that both Russia and China promoted dangerous conspiracy theories about COVID-19 that likely had a negative impact on global public health, which in our judgment, constitutes serious wrongdoing. These conspiracy narratives included the idea that contact tracing was a sinister plot for governments to track their citizens and establish a totalitarian state; that unproven drugs like hydroxychloroquine and ivermectin were effective for treating COVID-19, but were being withheld from the public by a Big Pharma cabal; and that the danger of COVID-19 was being greatly exaggerated by the media and medical establishment.

“Never mind that these conspiracy theories are self-contradictory: COVID-19, if you were to simultaneously believe all these narratives, is no worse than a mild cold, but also a deadly U.S. government–developed bioweapon. Never mind that both Russia and China have themselves experienced significant death tolls and economic impacts from the virus that have been prolonged by distrust of their own citizens towards the medical establishment. Russia and China’s governments have put their geopolitical interests ahead of the public health, safety, and lives of innocent civilians around the world.”

Disinformation Increased Pandemic-Related Deaths

To date, COVID-19 has claimed more than 1.1 million American lives, a substantial share of the 7 million confirmed deaths worldwide. The actual toll may be higher; based on several analyses of excess mortality in the U.S. and worldwide. By June 2021, nearly 240,000 U.S. deaths could have been prevented if more Americans had accepted primary series vaccination, according to a study by the Peterson Center on Healthcare and KFF. Unfortunately, tens of millions refused because they’d been persuaded to distrust government scientists and even the advice of their own doctors and nurses.

Because the algorithms that drive social media are designed to reach, segment, and reinforce users’ opinions to generate more “clicks,” they provide fertile ground for those seeking to distort public opinion. Disinformation—the more provocative, the better—thrives in such an environment. That’s why lies spread faster than truth on the internet.

The Politicization of Disinformation

Disinformation is increasingly intertwined with politics. Under the guise of “defending medical freedom,” nationally respected biomedical and public health scientists such as Anthony Fauci, Peter Hotez, and Paul Offit were demonized and threatened on the internet and publicly attacked by elected officials.

Zuckerberg’s complaint that he was pressured to “censor” Facebook content probably strikes many federal scientists as ironic. In prior disease outbreaks, they were often asked to provide objective information to the public. However, during the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic, many were sidelined and silenced as President Trump sought to downplay the threat. In their place, the Administration brought in Dr. Scott Atlas and others who held views more aligned with the President’s own.

Unfortunately, it is getting more difficult to study the problem. The Washington Post reports that under political pressure from Rep. Jordan and other ultraconservatives in Congress, “academics, universities, and government agencies are overhauling or ending research programs designed to counter the spread of online misinformation.”

Through The Looking Glass

In 1983, the late U.S. Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan asserted in a Washington Post op-ed that, “Everyone is entitled to his own opinion, but not his own facts.” A lot has changed since then. In a 2020 appearance on NBC’s Meet the Press, Trump Senior Adviser Kellyanne Conway sought to explain away false claims of the size of President Trump’s inaugural crowd by describing them as “alternative facts.”

Today, in a parallel universe filled with alternative facts, “natural” infections are safer than vaccines, fluoridated water and wind turbines are harmful to health, antidepressants are linked to school shootings and climate change is a hoax. All of these beliefs, and many more, are fueled by disinformation.

By publicly expressing regret for taking modest steps to rein in disinformation at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic—the deadliest public health challenge our nation has faced in 100 years—Mr. Zuckerberg has signaled to Rep. Jordan and his allies in Congress, as well as purveyors of disinformation across the globe, that Facebook—a social media giant with more than 2 billion daily users—is open for business.