House Republicans have demanded that President Biden provide the details of his campaign to combat social media misinformation regarding vaccination against COVID-19.
Representative Cathy McMorris Rodgers of Washington, the lead Republican on the House Energy and Commerce Committee, wrote a letter to Biden on Thursday opposing the White House's efforts to identify and remove posts on Facebook that promote misinformation regarding coronavirus vaccinations.
"The federal government's ongoing efforts to pressure private companies to censor speech that it disagrees with is alarming and an affront to the First Amendment", the letter read. "It is the type of behaviour we would expect from a Cuban dictator, not a president of the United States".
In particular, the Republicans called for more information about the social media monitoring campaign, including a "complete list" of all the posts the Biden administration has flagged for removal from social media platforms, as well as a list of all the social media users the White House has asked Facebook or other platforms to ban or suspend.
The letter to Biden was signed by House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy, House Whip Steve Scalise, and Republican Conference Chair Elise Stefanik, according to a copy obtained by Fox News. The Republicans say the government should not be involved in monitoring social media discourse.
"The White House's ongoing effort to pressure social media companies to censor speech that the Biden Administration disagrees with is alarming", one of the signers, Representative Bryan Steil of Wisconsin, commented on Twitter.
"This is the problem with your censorship mission", the legislators said. "Not only are you attacking the First Amendment, but your 'truth' might be wrong".
The GOP congressional members specifically refer to a Chinese lab leak theory regarding the origins of COVID-19 that was initially dismissed as "misinformation" but is now being regarded more seriously by the US authorities, even by the intelligence community.
The lab leak theory has been repeatedly rejected by Chinese authorities as untrue and lacking any evidence. Moreover, a World Health Organisation report from a mission to Wuhan, though saying that "more timely and comprehensive data" will be required to determine the origins of the virus in the future, found that the theory of the virus escaping from a lab is "extremely unlikely".
Since February, the White House has asked Facebook and other social media companies for aid in preventing disinformation from spreading, such as the idea that vaccines will implant a microchip tracker. As a more contagious COVID-19 variant, Delta, is causing an increase in cases in the US and vaccination rates have slowed, the White House launched a public campaign last week to combat the spread of potentially harmful rumours.
Last week, White House press secretary Jen Psaki revealed that the Biden administration has been "flagging" content for removal on Facebook. While the president stated that Facebook's and other platforms' failure to remove incorrect content is costing individuals their lives due to a preventable disease.
Later, Biden put the blame on a dozen people who are in his opinion responsible for the great bulk of coronavirus misinformation on social media.
"Facebook isn't killing people. These 12 people are killing people", he said.
Earlier in his term, President Biden announced a goal of getting at least 70% of adult Americans partially vaccinated against COVID-19 by 4 July. However, the US fell short of his objective, as immunisation rates have slowed.
As of Thursday, slightly over 68% of adults in the country have had at least one vaccine injection, according to the CDC.