United States Surgeon General Dr. Vivek Murthy says that misinformation — much of it on tech platforms — is a public health threat that has cost people’s lives and prolonged the Covid pandemic. As Murthy said in a Thursday press conference, health advisories are usually about things people physically consume: food, drinks, cigarettes. But the first advisory of his tenure in the Biden administration (he was also the surgeon general under President Obama) is about what we consume with our eyes and ears: misinformation. The advisory comes with a set of guidelines on how to “build a healthy information environment,” with recommendations for everyone from social media users up to the platforms themselves (also: health workers, researchers, and the media). Murthy also went on some of those very platforms to spread the message, including Twitter and Facebook. “Today, we live in a world where misinformation poses an imminent and insidious threat to our nation’s health,” Murthy said in a press conference, adding that “modern technology companies” have allowed misinformation and disinformation to spread across their platforms “with little accountability.” The advisory isn’t a set of orders that must be followed by these companies, but the increased scrutiny and attention does…
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The surgeon general wants Facebook to do more to stop Covid-19 lies
