Click here to view this letter in PDF format Click here to take action and sign the petition November 23, 2021 Mark Zuckerberg, CEO Facebook, Inc. 1 Hacker Way Menlo Park, CA 94025 Dear Mr. Zuckerberg, The recent Facebook whistleblower disclosures have confirmed what many of us have suspected for a long time: that Facebook has repeatedly stonewalled the public, lawmakers and academics over the last 18 months despite having had “deep knowledge” about the scope and nature of COVID-19 and vaccine disinformation across its apps. For example, it has known what kinds of users were most likely to share falsehoods, and that authoritative sources on Facebook had become “cesspools of anti-vaccine comments” that created “a huge problem” that the company needed to fix. This deception must end now. So many deaths could have been prevented, and we must act with haste to prevent more, particularly with vaccines becoming imminently available for young children. We simply cannot afford another deadly round of covid and vaccine misinformation. On July 15, 2021, United States Surgeon General Vivek Murthy released an advisory on the rampant spread of false health information online, declaring it a public health threat. Throughout the COVID-19 pandemic, disinformation has been deadly. The viral spread of lies and conspiracy theories online have led people to refuse safe and effective vaccines and enabled the most recent, deadly wave of the Delta variant. This infodemic has polarized and politicized our society’s dialogue around evidence-based public health guidance such as social distancing and masking, and directly led to harassment and violence toward public health officials, healthcare professionals, and other frontline workers, from grocery store employees to airline staff. All of us — including technology platforms like Facebook — have a moral and civic duty to limit the spread of health disinformation. That is why we join Surgeon General Murthy as he calls upon technology companies to operate with greater transparency and accountability. Facebook must take immediate, urgent action to stop the deadly spread of COVID-19 disinformation on its platforms. Facebook must disclose all data about the scope, reach, and content of this disinformation and its impact on users for evaluation by independent public health researchers. Data that has already been released by Facebook on this landscape has fallen far short of what the public deserves to know. For Facebook to achieve actual transparency, it must go beyond providing select data points to the public and provide meaningful data from its vast data trove to the public health community. This will assist experts in understanding both how disinformation has rampantly spread on the platform and how to overcome the skepticism about vaccines that has arisen from it. Though Facebook makes claims to the contrary, recent studies and analyses suggest that despite the growing threat of viral variants, the spread of COVID-19 disinformation on Facebook is still raging. Recent research shows that Facebook algorithms are still recommending pages that promote vaccine dis/misinformation, and that the number of groups spreading this disinformation has more than doubled since April 2021. Prominent anti-vaxxers still remain on the platform, spreading harmful lies to millions of users, despite public calls for their removal. We do not know the full scope of anti-vaccine conspiracies spreading on Facebook, or if certain geographic areas are more affected than others, or if age, gender, race, ethnicity, profession, income, or education play a role in COVID disinformation. The lack of shared data and transparency to researchers and the public is deadly. What we do know is that Facebook could help save lives if it would release data to help answer these critical questions. We do know that Facebook’s internal study of vaccine hesitancy among its users reportedly shows that a large amount of content that does not break the rules may be causing harm in certain communities. We do know that this study and the supporting data has been kept secret from the public. We also do know that content casting doubt on the vaccine was the most popular post on Facebook in the first quarter of 2021. And, we do know that the need for Facebook to share its data is urgent, as daily infections have increased at a rate of greater than 400 percent from just a month ago. Facebook claims it is taking responsible steps toward removing, labeling, and/or down-ranking disinformation from its platform, yet keeps this critical information shrouded in secrecy. As public health leaders who recommend policies grounded in the principles of evidentiary science, we implore Facebook to responsibly disclose this data. Share what you know about COVID-19 disinformation with independent public health researchers so they can study it, evaluate its impact, and recommend solutions to the company and the public health community. Let us work together to prevent even more suffering and death, particularly amongst some of the most vulnerable members of our society: our children. Put saving lives ahead of a narrow-minded view of your business. Rather than allowing COVID to continue to kill us, help us bring this national nightmare to an end. Facebook, disclose your data NOW. Sincerely, Céline Gounder, MD, ScM, FIDSA Clinical Assistant Professor of Medicine and Infectious Diseases, NYU Grossman School of Medicine and Bellevue Hospital Center Kavita Patel, MD, MSHS Physician Brookings Institution Craig Spencer, MD, MPH Associate Professor of Emergency Medicine and Population and Family Health, Columbia University Medical Center Robert Davidson, MD Executive Director, The Committee to Protect Health Care Matifadza Hlatshwayo Davis, MD, MPH Director of Health, City of St. Louis Department of Health Kali Cyrus, MD, MPH Assistant Professor of Psychiatry & Behavioral Medicine, Johns Hopkins Medicine Meenakshi Bewtra, MD, MPH, PhD Assistant Professor of Medicine and Epidemiology University of Pennsylvania Oni Blackstock, MD, MHS Founder and Executive Director, Health Justice Uché Blackstock, MD Founder and CEO, Advancing Health Equity LLC Ebony Hilton, MD Anesthesiologist GOODSTOCK Consulting, LLC Joia Crear Perry, MD President, National Birth Equity Collaborative Stella Safo, MD, MPH Founder and Executive Director, Just Equity for Health Megan Ranney, MD, MPH Emergency Physician Associate Dean, School of Public Health, Brown University Elizabeth Clayborne, MD, MA Bioethics Adjunct Assistant Professor of Emergency Medicine University of Maryland School of Medicine Alister Francois Martin, MD, MPP Assistant Professor, Harvard Medical School Dara Kass, MD Physician, Columbia University Irving Medical Center Seth Trueger, MD, MPH Emergency Physician, Northwestern Medicine Digital Media Editor, JAMA Network Open Riana Elyse Anderson, PhD, LCP Assistant Professor, University of Michigan Tsion Firew, MD, MPH Assistant Professor of Emergency Medicine, Columbia University Toni Biskup, MD, MPH Hospitalist, Alaska Native Tribal Health Consortium Dona Kim Murphey, MD, PhD Physician scientist Doctors in Politics Krishnan Narasimhan, MD President and Board Chair, Doctors for America Justin Lowenthal, MD-PhD Candidate Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine Board of Directors/Director of Partnerships, Doctors for America Sujan Gogu, DO, FAAFP, CAQ Sports Medicine, CAQ Pain Medicine Physician Founding Circle of Doctors in Politics LJ Punch, MD Acute Care Surgeon Executive Director, The T Arghavan Salles, MD, PhD Special Advisor for DEI Programs, Stanford University Joseph Sakran, MD, MPH, MPA Director, Emergency General Surgery Johns Hopkins Hospital Manisha Sharma, MD, FAAFP Senior Medical Director AAFP, AMA, CMA, DFA, CentiVox, Civic Health Alliance Anand Swaminathan, MD, MPH Emergency Physician, St. Joseph’s University Medical Center Lakshman Swamy, MD, MBA Assistant Professor, Population & Quantitative Health Sciences, UMass Medical School Instructor in Medicine, Harvard Medical School Pulmonary and Critical Care Medicine, Cambridge Health Alliance Hussain Lalani, MD, MPH Internal Medicine Physician Steven McDonald, MD Assistant Professor of Emergency MedicineNYP / Columbia University Manish Garg, MD Emergency Medicine Physician American College of Academic International Medicine and World Academic Council of Emergency Medicine Annalee Baker, MD Emergency Physician, NYU Langone Health Howard P. Forman Professor of Radiology, Public Health, Economics, & Management, Yale University Angie Bakke, MBA Executive Director, Doctors for America David Scales, MPhil, MD, PhD Assistant Professor of Medicine Weill Cornell Medicine Duncan Maru, MD, PhD Epidemiologist and Physician Senior Faculty, Arnhold Institute for Global Health, Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai Co-Founder, Possible Sarah Kureshi, MD, MPH Assistant Professor and Vice Chair of Education, Dept. of Family Medicine Georgetown University Medical Center To view the complete list of signees, click here.