12 People Responsible For 65% Of Vaccine Misinformation On Social Media

The White House continued its campaign against coronavirus vaccine misinformation on social media. White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki cited a study that found a majority of false claims are coming from a small group of people known as the "disinformation dozen."

"There's about 12 people who are producing 65% of anti-vaccine misinformation on social media platforms," Psaki said during a press briefing.

"All of them remain active on Facebook," Psaki added, saying that Facebook "needs to move more quickly to remove harmful violative posts."

The study, conducted by the Center for Countering Digital Hate in March, identified nearly 100 accounts that were spreading misinformation across social media. The organization called on Facebook and Twitter to shut down the accounts, and as of Friday (July 16), 35 accounts with 5.8 million followers had been shut down. They said that 62 accounts, which have a total of 8.4 million followers, remain open.

The most noteworthy member of the "disinformation dozen" is Robert F. Kennedy Jr. Instagram, which is owned by Facebook, removed his account earlier in the year, but the social media company did not disable his Facebook account.

"We don't automatically disable accounts across our apps because the accounts may post about different things on our different services," a Facebook spokesperson explained to CNN.