CNN fact-checker Daniel Dale has caught Joe Biden’s White House pushing “disinformation” about the availability of vaccines under President Donald Trump.
However, Biden’s new “disinfo chief” Nina Jankowicz is oddly silent about the false claims, as was Twitter.
The social media platform did add a disclosure pointing out the lie to some users but it is not clear how many saw the correction.
“When President Biden took office, millions were unemployed and there was no vaccine available,” the White House’s verified Twitter said.
“In the last 15 months, the economy has created 8.3M jobs and the unemployment rate stands at 3.6% — the fastest decline in unemployment to start a President’s term ever recorded.”
Dale immediately called out the lie:
“‘There was no vaccine available’ is very clearly false.
“More than 3 million Americans were fully vaccinated and more than 18 million had at least one dose by Biden’s Inauguration Day.
“Biden himself was fully vaccinated.
“Obviously became more widely available with time, but.”
“There was no vaccine available” is very clearly false. More than 3 million Americans were fully vaccinated and more than 18 million had at least one dose by Biden’s Inauguration Day. Biden himself was fully vaccinated.
Obviously became more widely available with time, but. https://t.co/HNivLzStWT
— Daniel Dale (@ddale8) May 13, 2022
According to Fox News:
“Twitter, which has taken steps to prevent misinformation on the platform, claims in its guidelines that users ‘may not use Twitter’s services to share false or misleading information about COVID-19 which may lead to harm.’
“The policy goes on to state that content related to COVID-19 is considered in violation if it’s ‘demonstrably false or misleading, based on widely available, authoritative sources.’
“The social media juggernaut then explains that these types of violations could force users to become locked out of their account until the tweet is deleted, and a permanent suspension could be handed to repeat offenders.
“Twitter did not respond to a request for comment.
“Some users received a disclaimer that ‘readers added context’ to indicate the first vaccines were given before Biden took office, but only a ‘small group of people’ who are part of a ‘pilot program’ received the notification.
“It’s unclear why the White House tweet received this message that wasn’t even visible to most followers instead of harsher punishment,” Fox reported.
Elon Musk slams Nina Jankowicz’s call for verified users to edit tweets https://t.co/YJJJmDv71t pic.twitter.com/qSIrpk55qQ
— New York Post (@nypost) May 13, 2022
