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US activists place body bags in front of Facebook's DC office protesting vaccine misinformation

Body bags reading "Disinfo Kills" were placed outside of Facebook's DC office. (Via Reuters)

US activists have laid body bags in front of the Facebook's offices in Washington DC in protest against coronavirus misinformation that has been spread on the US social media platform.

The group calling itself "The Real Facebook Oversight Board" (RFOB), tweeted that, "We placed body bags in front of Facebook HQ in Washington DC to draw attention to dangerous disinfo on Facebook," adding, "Facebook will likely report record earnings today. Investors need to ask themselves: what are they getting for their money?"

The RFOB, a coalition of academics, experts, and civil rights leaders, also released  a report demanding Facebook disable post engagement on content from “proven disinformation superspreaders”.

It referenced a report by the Center for Countering Digital Hate (CCDH), which identified a "disinformation dozen" - 12 individuals that was found were responsible for two-thirds of all anti-vaccine content on Facebook.

Facebook has drawn strong accusations from the Biden administration of failing to tackle a misinformation spread via its platform regarding the coronavirus vaccines, with the US president saying that the US social media are "killing people" due to the spread of false information.

Facebook denied Biden's assertions, with the US president later backtracking on his statement that it was not the social media platform itself "killing people", but the misinformation.
The protest came as US COVID cases and deaths driven by unvaccinated people continue to surge across the country.

US top infectious diseases expert has warned Dr. Anthony Fauci said the coronavirus situation in the US is becoming "a pandemic among the unvaccinated Americans."

“We have 50 percent of the country not fully vaccinated. That’s a problem, particularly when you have a variant, like Delta, which has this extraordinary characteristic of being able to spread very efficiently and very easily from person to person,” Fauci said.

US daily coronavirus infections rise again after numbers fell in May and June. The seven-day average of new COVID cases in the US was up 53 percent over the previous week.

The sharpest increases in COVID cases are in US states with lower vaccination rates, such as Florida, Texas and Missouri.

In southern US states, fewer than half of residents have received their first dose in some cases.

Nearly 35 million Americans have been infected with COVID-19 and over 616,500 deaths recorded so far in the US.


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