The US White House Twitter account was attacked by netizens. They were accused of posting misinformation about the COVID-19 vaccine.
Usually it's fake accounts alias anonymous accounts that like to spread hoaxes and misinformation. While on the other hand, official government accounts are busy telling here and there if there are hoax posts.
However, this time the problem came from the official US White House Twitter account which was already blue ticked. They posted about America being without a COVID-19 vaccine when US President Joe Biden took office, and now the mood is much better.
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"When President Biden took office, millions were unemployed and there was no vaccine. In 15 months, the economy created 8.3 million jobs and an unemployment rate of 3.6% - the fastest decline in the unemployment rate since a president took office on record," the White House said.
This tweet got 12 thousand likes, 2,723 retweets and 6,289 quote tweets when viewed by us, Sunday (15/5/2022). The problem is... this tweet turned out to be misinformation.
This tweet was criticized by many netizens, including several US figures and politicians. A COVID-19 vaccine was in place when US President Joe Biden took office.
"There is no vaccine available? What did President Biden use to inject? Sugar water?" Jeryl Bier, the editor of Pluribus, who ticked blue while including a White House tweet on December 22, 2020, about Biden's activities in injecting the COVID-19 vaccine.
"This is wrong. Vaccine distribution has started in December 2020, before he took office," said @arkepi2020.
"So funny, I was injected when Trump was in office, but the facts don't matter," said @obtog1.
Under attack from netizens, the White House did not delete the original post. However, they made a new post admitting there was a misstatement.
"We previously misrepresented that the vaccine was not available in January 2021. We should have called it not widely available. The vaccine became available shortly after President (Biden) took office. Since then, he has been responsible for the completion of the vaccine for 200 million people (America), said the White House.
Some netizens asked why Twitter seemed to just let the misinformation post. But perhaps a White House clarification in a separate tweet is why.
