Joe Biden has been accused of acting like 'a Cuban dictator' in a letter signed by 190 House Republicans, after his administration moved to force tech companies to clamp down on coronavirus misinformation.
A letter to the president was written on Thursday by Cathy McMorris Rodgers, the top Republican on the House Energy and Commerce Committee, and the three top Republicans in the House - Leader Kevin McCarthy, Whip Steve Scalise and Republican Conference Chair Elise Stefanik.
'The federal government's ongoing efforts to pressure private companies to censor speech that it disagrees with is alarming and an affront to the First Amendment,' they wrote, in a letter obtained by Fox News.
'It is the type of behavior we would expect from a Cuban dictator, not a President of the United States.'
They sent the letter to the Biden administration after the president's town hall performance where he falsely told the audience that 'you're not going to get COVID if you have these vaccinations', and fumbled an answer on FDA approval of the shots.
'Just like the other question, it's illogical and I've heard you speak about it because I'm not being solicitous, but you're always straight up about what you're doing. And the question is whether or not we should be in a position where you, um, are, why can't the, the, the experts say, we know that this virus is, in fact, um, uh, it it's going to be, excuse me, we know why all the drugs are approved or not temporarily approved, but permanently approved. That's underway, too. I expect that to occur quickly.'
Don Lemon then said: 'Well, that means you mean for the FDA.' Biden responded: 'For the FDA'.
He also said: 'If you're vaccinated, you're not going to be hospitalized, you're not going to be in an ICU unit, and you are not going to die.'
Elise Stefanik, the House Republican Chair, is one of four senior members of her party who wrote a letter to Joe Biden, accusing him of acting 'like a Cuban dictator'. She is flanked, to her right, by Steve Scalise, another author of the letter
On Tuesday Kate Bedingfield, the White House communications director, said that social media companies should be held accountable for publishing misleading information on the COVID vaccine.
She also said the administration is reviewing Section 230 - a 1990s era ruling that prevents tech firms from being held liable for their content, in the way that newspaper and magazine publishers are.
Biden's move is also being mirrored by a bill, introduced by Democrat Senators Amy Klobuchar and Ben Ray Lujan, to make tech firms liable for any misinformation on their platforms which they fail to remove. The 'misinformation' will be defined by the Department of Health and Human Services, under their proposal.
The Health Misinformation Act was introduced on Thursday, and has no Republican support.
In their letter, the House Republicans argue that government should not be involved in policing social media speech, pointing out that public health consensus has evolved.
Masks were originally discouraged, and the idea that the virus could have escaped from a Chinese laboratory was initially dismissed as a conspiracy theory.
'This is the problem with your censorship mission,' they wrote to Biden.
'Not only are you attacking the First Amendment, but your 'truth' might be wrong.'
House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy was another of the co-authors of the letter
The White House has been seeking help from Facebook and other social media sites since February on stopping misinformation from going viral, such as the myth that the vaccine will implant a microchip tracker.
Joe Biden said last week that Facebook and other companies were 'killing people' by serving as platforms for misinformation about the COVID-19 vaccine.
He later clarified his comments by saying that he wasn't accusing Facebook of killing people, but that he instead wanted the company to 'do something about the misinformation, the outrageous information about the vaccine.'
'Social media companies have a responsibility,' Bedingfield said on MSNBC's Morning Joe, echoing a message that has come out of the White House this week as they try to raise the vaccination rate.
'We're reviewing that and certainly they should be held accountable.
'I think you heard the president speak very aggressively about this.
'It is also the responsibility of the people creating the content.
'Again I go back to there are conservative news outlets creating irresponsible content sharing misinformation about the virus that's getting shared on these platforms.
'So it is a big and complicated ecosystem and everybody bears responsibility.'
Facebook has rejected the Biden administration's criticisms.
In a blog post, the company said that 85 per cent of its users in the U.S. have been or want to be vaccinated against COVID-19.
Facebook also said it was doing its part to help get more Americans vaccinated, such as by operating pop-up vaccine clinics in low-income and underserved communities in California and other states.
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