President Joe Biden made a big strategic choice with his farewell address. "Americans are being buried under an avalanche of misinformation and disinformation," he warned on Wednesday night. "Social media is giving up on fact-checking. ... We must hold the social platforms accountable to protect our children, our families and our very democracy from the abuse of power."
This week, those dangers are playing out in real time.
California is battling one of the worst wildfires in its history. More than 100,000 people have been displaced, and thousands of homes, schools and community buildings have been destroyed. The recovery efforts will take months, if not years. But Gov. Gavin Newsom faces an additional, insidious challenge: rampant misinformation. Social media platforms, including one owned by Donald Trump's bestie (and former California resident) Elon Musk, have been flooded with falsehoods about the state's water systems and fire response.
I spoke with Newsom this week, and his frustration was clear: "What's not helpful or beneficial," he said, "is these wild-eyed fantasies … that somehow there's a magical spigot in Northern California that just can be turned on, and all of a sudden there will be rain or water flowing everywhere. It's not helpful."
The damage caused by misinformation extends far beyond California's borders. And under our next president, it's likely going to get worse.
Many tech CEOs, including TikTok's, have been given front-row seats (or whatever the equivalent may be in the Capitol rotunda) at Trump's inauguration. This is a clear sign of how closely this administration plans to align with Silicon Valley. Musk remains an outlier in some ways, but the Trump administration has already started a race to the bottom as far as fact-checking is concerned.
Meta is ending its fact-checking program to adopt a "community notes" system, similar to X. And according to Axios, Google has told the European Union it will not add fact checks to search results, despite a new E.U. law requiring it.
California's wildfires are a stark reminder of the stakes of unchecked misinformation. The question now is how far companies will go as they seek to please Trump.
Read more exclusive insights from Jen Psaki here. And tune into "Inside with Jen Psaki" Mondays at 8 p.m. ET, and Sundays at 12 p.m. ET on MSNBC.
