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As he prepares to leave office next week, President Joe Biden reflected on his administration's legacy, and his answer to a question about his biggest regret should be a blaring siren for Democrats.
In a recent interview with USA Today, Biden told reporter Susan Page he was most disappointed in his administration’s failure to combat the rise of misinformation.
Whether the topic was immigration, the economy or the Israel-Hamas war, misinformation created hurdles for the Biden administration over the last four years.
Per USA Today:
His biggest disappointment, Biden said, was his failure to effectively counter misinformation, including that from Trump. He said that challenge reflects the revolution in how Americans get their news, and whom they trust to tell it. ‘Because of the way, nature, the nature of the way information is shared now, there are no editors out there to say “That’s simply not true,”’ Biden said.
Despite his feelings on the matter, I think the Biden administration waged an unprecedented and admirable fight against mis- and disinformation, even as it ran into equally unprecedented headwinds. The Disinformation Governance Board that was meant to live within the Department of Homeland Security — and the scrapping of that board after it was undermined, ironically, by far-right disinformation — was a prime example of the administration’s effort to identify the problem and craft a novel solution, without being provided the tools to fix it.
That failure, and some of the legal cases the Biden administration faced around social media content moderation, also seemed to create a chilling effect that hampered U.S. agencies’ fight against “fake news.” NBC News reported in June 2024 that some lawmakers were concerned by what seemed like law enforcement and security agencies’ lack of preparedness to fight disinformation. And Health and Human Services Secretary Xavier Becerra recently told The Washington Post the lawsuits limited his ability to combat misinformation.
Democrats in Congress also did themselves no favors when, in 2023, they released a Jan. 6 report that seemed to obscure social media platforms’ role in fomenting extremism ahead of the deadly insurrection attempt. This was a missed opportunity to show Americans the imminent dangers posed by social platforms.
It’s been promising to hear candidates for the new Democratic National Committee chair position — and in particular, Wisconsin activist Ben Wikler — talk about the need for the party to understand and grapple with the misinformation and political propaganda that is rife within the current information ecosystem. And Mark Zuckerberg’s sharp MAGA turn on content moderation ought to be a wake-up call to those Democrats who have failed to take the issue more seriously.
Ultimately, Biden’s assessment seems fair to me. His and the Democratic Party’s failures to address misinformation adequately may prove to be the most consequential shortcoming of his presidency. But there are at least some signs the party is doing some necessary course correction.