Biden climate adviser: Social media companies need to censor fossil fuel 'disinformation'
White House Climate Adviser Gina McCarthy told Alexi McCammond of Axios that social media companies need to censor 'disinformation' on green energy.
White House National Climate Adviser Gina McCarthy skewered Big Tech companies for "allowing" disinformation and cheered Congress for "taking action" to enact more censorship last Thursday.
McCarthy, who also served as an Environmental Protection Agency administrator during Barack Obama’s presidency, spoke during an Axios event titled "A conversation on battling misinformation."
Axios political reporter Alexi McCammond asked McCarthy how so-called "rampant mis-and-disinformation around climate change online and in other platforms" has "made your job harder?"
McCarthy responded by slamming social media companies: "We have to get tighter, we have to get better at communicating, and frankly, the tech companies have to stop allowing specific individuals over and over again to spread disinformation. That’s what the fossil fuel companies pay for."
White House Climate Adviser Gina McCarthy and Secretary of Transportation Pete Buttigieg hold a news conference on April 22, 2021, in Washington, D.C. (Drew Angerer/Getty Images)
She suggested further that "we have to be smarter than that and we need the tech companies to really jump in."
McCammond responded by asking: "Isn’t misinformation and disinfo around climate a threat to public health itself?"
McCarthy asserted that it "absolutely" is:
"Oh, absolutely. You know. It’s not just denial of this, it’s also greenwashing. You have these companies that are claiming to be part of the solution that really are just not informing people about what they’re really doing and how they’re really investing and how people should be investing their money if they really care about climate."
Secretary of Transportation Pete Buttigieg looks on as White House National Climate Adviser Gina McCarthy speaks during an event about fuel economy standards at the headquarters of the Department of Transportation on April 1, 2022, in Washington, D.C. (Drew Angerer/Getty Images)
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McCarthy also praised Congress directly for pushing social media companies to censor Americans: "We do see Congress taking action on these issues, we do see them trying to tackle the misinformation that’s out there, trying to hold companies accountable."
The Biden administration has a history of asking Big Tech companies to censor Americans in the name of "public health."
Former Biden White House press secretary Jen Psaki declared as much directly in a press briefing last year.
White House National Climate Adviser Gina McCarthy speaks as U.S. Secretary of Energy Jennifer Granholm looks on during an event to discuss investments in the U.S. electric vehicle charging network, outside Department of Transportation headquarters on Feb. 10, 2022, in Washington, D.C. (Drew Angerer/Getty Images)
"So we're regularly making sure social media platforms are aware of the latest narratives, dangerous to public health that we and many other Americans are seeing across all of social and traditional media," Psaki explained. "And we work to engage with them to better understand the enforcement of social media platform policies."
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The White House recently proposed a Disinformation Governance Board to tackle these issues. The project was temporarily paused after the board and its leadership were widely panned.
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