Posted on Jul 23, 2021
Democrats Want To Hold Social Media Companies Responsible For Health Misinformation
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https://www.npr.org/2021/07/22/ [login to see] /democrats-want-to-hold-social-media-companies-responsible-for-health-misinformat
Democratic senators introduced a bill on Thursday that would hold Facebook, YouTube and other social media companies responsible for the proliferation of falsehoods about vaccines, fake cures and other harmful health-related claims on their sites.
Co-sponsored by Democratic Senators Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota and Ben Ray Luján of New Mexico, the Health Misinformation Act targets a provision in Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act, which protects platforms from being held liable for what their users post in most cases.
The bill would strip the companies of that legal shield if their algorithms promote health misinformation during a public health crisis. It would not apply if such misinformation is shown in a chronological feed. (Most social platforms use algorithms to rank posts based on what they think users will be interested in,)
The legislation leaves it up to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, which is responsible for declaring public health emergencies, to define what constitutes health misinformation.
Democratic senators introduced a bill on Thursday that would hold Facebook, YouTube and other social media companies responsible for the proliferation of falsehoods about vaccines, fake cures and other harmful health-related claims on their sites.
Co-sponsored by Democratic Senators Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota and Ben Ray Luján of New Mexico, the Health Misinformation Act targets a provision in Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act, which protects platforms from being held liable for what their users post in most cases.
The bill would strip the companies of that legal shield if their algorithms promote health misinformation during a public health crisis. It would not apply if such misinformation is shown in a chronological feed. (Most social platforms use algorithms to rank posts based on what they think users will be interested in,)
The legislation leaves it up to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, which is responsible for declaring public health emergencies, to define what constitutes health misinformation.
Democrats Want To Hold Social Media Companies Responsible For Health Misinformation
Posted from npr.org
Democrats
United States Senate
Social Media
Medical
Health
Posted >1 y ago
Responses: 5
I have no issue with this. If the social media companies are allowing false health-related information to proliferate, especially information that can actually lead to harm and death, then they should be given the legislative encouragement to police up that information (rather than passively letting it spread within society, or worse, giving it a bigger platform by promoting it). I think it's wrong to just allow them to rake in the cash while letting their users spread false information that can harm or kill people.
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I've been saying all along since last March that social media and regular media needs to be taken to church and raked across the hot coals for their fear mongering and misinformation distribution
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MSgt Evan Downey
The Republicans destroyed the Fairness Doctrine specifically for the purpose of being able to use media as propaganda and to manipulate the truth.
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