AOC says Facebook and other US firms have ‘sabotaged’ the global response to Covid by spreading ‘disinformation’

• e-mail

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (AOC) has called for Facebook and other US firms to be 'broken up' for 'sabotaging' the global response to the Covid-19 pandemic by being complicit in spreading 'disinformation'.

The Democratic Senator for New York also argued that the tech giant, which recently changed its name to Meta, should be subject to anti-trust action for its 'corrosive abuse of democracy' and role in 'contributing to and accelerating social violence'. 

Facebook and other social media goliaths like Twitter have been criticized over the past 18 months for providing a platform to spread what some perceive as false information about the virus.

But there are numerous examples of the same social media networks introducing blanket, seemingly arbitrary bans on reputable scientists as well as politicians challenging the official response to Covid-19. 

The progressive lawmaker's latest tirade against Mark Zuckerberg's Facebook and other US firms comes a day after she returned to Twitter, having declared less than 24 hours before that she was taking a break from the platform due to 'negative comments that caused anxiety'. 

AOC has one of the largest social media followings of any US politician with close to 13 million followers on Twitter, 8.5 million followers on Instagram and over a million subscribers on Facebook.

Facebook did not immediately respond to a MailOnline request for comment.

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (AOC) has called for Facebook and other US firms to be 'broken up' for 'sabotaging' the global response to the Covid-19 pandemic for being complicit in spreading 'disinformation' (AOC pictured during interview with Yahoo! Finance)

Facebook and other social media goliaths like Twitter have been criticized over the past 18 months for providing a platform to spread what some perceive as false information about the virus (Facebook/Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg pictured)

The Democratic Senator for New York also argued that the tech giant, which recently changed its name to Meta, should be subject to anti-trust action for its 'corrosive abuse of democracy' and role in 'contributing to and accelerating social violence' (a woman holds smartphone with Facebook logo in front of a displayed Facebook's new rebrand logo Meta)

The interview with Yahoo! Finance's Andy Serwer published last night saw AOC rip into Facebook and other unnamed 'US firms' for their handling of the pandemic.

'There are things we want the United States to stop exporting and one of those things is disinformation — disinformation through US-founded companies like Facebook that have absolutely slowed and frankly sabotaged the global effort to fight against the coronavirus,' she declared.

'Facebook should be broken up,' the lawmaker continued. 'They're an advertiser. They are acting as both platform and vendor. They are a communication platform, which has historically been a well established domain of antitrust.' 

AOC drew ire for her Covid rhetoric just weeks ago when she was pictured maskless at multiple social engagements during a trip to Miami in Florida.

Although Florida Governor Ron DeSantis signed an executive order banning local government from enforcing face mask rules across the State, AOC has long campaigned for tougher restrictions and has argued that other states should adopt the wildly unpopular Covid measures currently in place in New York. 

AOC has one of the largest social media followings of any US politician with close to 13 million followers on Twitter, 8.5 million followers on Instagram and over a million subscribers on Facebook 

It comes as a total of 72 percent of surveyed Americans say they are wary about how Facebook manages personal data in a poll that also reflects distrust of other social media platforms such as TikTok, Instagram and WhatsApp  - with the latter two also owned by Facebook parent company Meta.  

Just 20 percent of people said they trust Facebook 'a great deal,' with another 72 percent of the 1,100 surveyed by The Washington Post expressing distrust of the social networking giant; eight percent of people did not offer an opinion.

Meanwhile, former Facebook employee Frances Haugen in October 2021 leaked thousands of documents which showed that the social media giant had gathered extensive evidence of coronavirus misinformation on its platform, but chose not to disclose this to the public.

Former Facebook employee Frances Haugen came forward in October with thousands of damaging internal documents from Facebook (Haugen pictured during a hearing before the Communications and Technology Subcommittee of House Energy and Commerce Committee December 1, 2021)

AOC drew ire for her Covid rhetoric just weeks ago when she was pictured maskless at multiple social engagements during a trip to Miami in Florida. Although Florida Governor Ron DeSantis signed an executive order banning local government from enforcing face mask rules across the State, AOC has long campaigned for tougher restrictions and has argued that other states should adopt the wildly unpopular Covid measures currently in place in New York (AOC pictured December 2021)

Facebook spokesperson Aaron Simpson responded to the news in October, telling the Washington Post: 'There's no silver bullet to fighting misinformation, which is why we take a comprehensive approach which includes removing more than 20 million pieces of content that break our covid misinformation policies.

'[Facebook] connects more than 2 billion people to reliable information about covid-19 and vaccines, and partnering with independent fact-checkers.'  

CEO Mark Zuckerberg also offered a sharp-elbowed response, refusing to apologize publicly and instead changing the company's name to Meta to highlight his focus on building a virtual reality metaverse.

'When our work is being mischaracterized, we're not going to apologize,' a Facebook spokesman told the Wall Street Journal. 'We're going to defend our record.' 

But Samidh Chakrabarti, who founded Facebook's civic-integrity team and left the company in September, became an outspoken critic on Twitter following the revelations.

'Meta's disingenuous spin of the FB Files as a partisan conspiracy isn't just incorrect, but is another example of short-term thinking,' he wrote.

'Might forestall regulation for now, but makes it harder to get new recruits to sign offers without some level of shame.'

Zuckerberg V Biden: Facebook hit back at President Biden after he accused the company of 'killing people' by allowing misinformation about the COVID-19 vaccine to circulate on its platform

Facebook VP Guy Rosen was quick to refute the accusations from Biden that misinformation on Facebook was 'killing people'

In November, Chakrabarti continued to criticize Facebook for its lack of transparency: It's been ~6 weeks since I left FB, and since then I've tried to bring deeper understanding to the complex issues the company faces. Some tweets have been supportive and others skeptical. But I now understand why so many ex-employees avoid saying anything vaguely critical.'

Facebook's role in the distribution of Covid information was brought to the fore in July when Joe Biden accused social media platforms of 'killing people' through the spread of vaccine misinformation. 

At the time, Facebook VP Guy Rosen was quick to refute the accusation, arguing that vaccine acceptance among Facebook users had increased since the previous January and advocating instead for a 'whole of society' approach to ending the pandemic.

Rosen bit back sharply, writing that '85 per cent of Facebook users in the US have been or want to be vaccinated against COVID-19.

'President Biden's goal was for 70% of Americans to be vaccinated by July 4. Facebook is not the reason this goal was missed.'