White House’s Jha: Social media platform owners should consider role in COVID misinformation
FILE PHOTO: White House COVID-19 Response Coordinator Ashish Jha joins Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre for the daily press briefing at the White House in Washington, U.S. October 25, 2022. REUTERS/Jonathan Ernst/File Photo
WASHINGTON (Reuters) — Owners of social media platforms should consider their personal responsibility regarding health disinformation, and the public should choose reputable sources to trust, White House COVID-19 response coordinator Ashish Jha said on Tuesday.
«You can decide to trust America’s physicians, or you can trust some random dude on Twitter. Those are your choices,» Jha said at a White House press briefing.
«For journalists and for people who own platforms, what I would say is you should be thinking about what your personal responsibility is, and do you want to be a source of misinformation and disinformation? That’s up to up to those individuals,» he said.
Jha was answering a question on Twitter allowing politicians and others who spread COVID vaccine misinformation back onto the platform under the leadership of new owner Elon Musk.
