US President Joe Biden has issued a statement clarifying that "Facebook isn't killing people", following his earlier criticism. The president had said "they're killing people" when asked about Facebook's role in the Covid pandemic, a comment which made headlines around the world.
But he now says he was referring to leading misinformation spreaders on the platform. Facebook had fiercely denied any responsibility. President Biden's initial remarks were off-the-cuff comments to a reporter, who'd asked about his message to "platforms like Facebook".
"They're killing people," he said. "The only pandemic we have is among the un-vaccinated. And they're killing people." It came on the day the White House press secretary had accused Facebook of not doing enough to combat the spread of misinformation by users.
Mr Biden now says this is what he was referring to - specifically to a recent report about 12 people credited with spreading a vast amount of misinformation. "Facebook isn't killing people, these 12 people are out there giving misinformation," he said. "Anyone listening to it is getting hurt by it. It's killing people.
"My hope is that Facebook, instead of taking it personally, that somehow I'm saying 'Facebook is killing people', that they would do something about the misinformation, the outrageous misinformation about the vaccine," he said. "That's what I meant."
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