Should social media come with a health warning?

PICK up a pack of cigarettes and you will probably see a terrifying picture of cancer lesions with a stern warning about how smoking can kill. For decades in the US, this was called the surgeon general’s warning, and it was a reminder that cigarettes are so bad that the government’s top doctor was against them. Now, the current surgeon general, Vivek Murthy, has recommended that we apply similar warnings to social media misinformation.

Speaking in mid-July to CNN, Murthy said that social media networks played a “major role” in circulating misinformation about covid-19. He said that this “harms…