White House to Ask SMS Carriers to Monitor Vaccine ‘Misinformation’ in Private Text Messages

By  Megan Redshaw

According to Politico, the Biden administration may be taking a step further in curbing vaccine misinformation by monitoring private social media and text messages.

The Biden administration and allied groups, including the Democratic National Committee (DNC), are “planning to engage fact-checkers more aggressively and work with SMS [Short Message Service] carriers to dispel misinformation about vaccines sent over social media and text messages,” according to a report today in Politico by White House correspondents Natasha Korecki and Eugene Daniels.

The initiative is part of the administration’s attempt to get more people vaccinated for COVID after failing to reach its goal of having 70% of American adults receive at least one vaccine dose by July 4.

“We are steadfastly committed to keeping politics out of the effort to get every American vaccinated so that we can save lives and help our economy further recover,” White House spokesperson Kevin Munoz said, according to Politico. “When we see deliberate efforts to spread misinformation, we view that as an impediment to the country’s public health and will not shy away from calling that out.”

Politico’s Korecki tweeted this:

Biden allied groups, including the DNC, r planning to push SMS carriers to “to dispel misinformation about vaccines that is sent over social media & text messages”
haven’t seen misinfo fights in texting realm as much
via @natashakorecki & @EugeneDaniels2 https://t.co/9jSj8a5awI

— Alex Thompson (@AlexThomp) July 12, 2021

https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js
Politico did not clearly define what the administration meant by “monitoring” of text messages, including if messages would be flagged or if they would be prevented from being delivered.

The media outlet also did not clarify how the administration or social media platforms would determine what exactly constitutes “misinformation.”

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Via https://childrenshealthdefense.org/defender/white-house-sms-carriers-monitor-vaccine-misinformation-private-text-messages/