Co-host of MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” Joe Scarborough is claiming COVID-19 misinformation comes “primarily” from Facebook, not Fox News.
During Monday’s show, Scarborough acknowledged the Republicans who were once silent about the vaccine are now urging people to get it.
Scarborough then noted, “Just an explosion, an absolute explosion in hospitalizations, 99.5% of everybody who is going to the hospital and dying haven’t been vaccinated and, yet, we’re still having this debate. It is surreal, and it is tragic.”
He added, “For those who politicize this, the death is on their hands. I don’t think there’s any other way to put it. Of course, the misinformation that continues to flow from Facebook primarily. I know there are a lot of people that say, ‘Look at Fox News, Look at Fox News.’ Even their top shows get two, three million viewers out of 325 million Americans. It’s Facebook that’s everywhere.”
Watch his comments below:
Scarborough explained health officials would say their biggest challenge is Facebook, continuing, “The lies that are spread, the misinformation that is spread. The doctor in Florida who’s making money by going viral, by spreading misinformation and lies about what’s happening with Covid and the vaccines. That’s what’s causing this in large part.”
He argued until Facebook is “broken up,” the social media platform needs to do more because the deaths related to COVID-19 “are on them.”
President Joe Biden weighed in on Facebook’s role in spreading misinformation earlier this month, as IJR reported.
“They’re killing people. The only pandemic we have is among the unvaccinated and they’re killing people,” Biden said.
Facebook penned a blog post pushing back against Biden’s claim, “The fact is that vaccine acceptance among Facebook users in the US has increased. These and other facts tell a very different story to the one promoted by the administration in recent days.”
The president attempted to clarify his claim while speaking to reporters on July 19.
“I mean precisely what I said,” Biden explained. “Facebook isn’t killing people. These 12 people are out there giving misinformation. Anyone listening to it is getting hurt by it. It’s killing people. It’s bad information.”
