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Under fire, Facebook finally cracks down on anti-vaccination content
Following weeks of censure in the media and from the public concerning Facebook Inc. allowing anti-vaccine content to flood the platform, the company now says enough is enough.
In a blog post today, Facebook said it’s working on a number of ways to prevent vaccine misinformation from appearing in people’s news feeds. At the same time, Facebook said the plan of action is to promote authoritative information on the subject of vaccines.
The crackdown will include Facebook reducing the ranking of groups and pages that disseminate spurious information relating to vaccines, while it will also make these pages unavailable when users search on the topic.
Ads will be now be rejected that include misinformation about vaccines, and Facebook said it will also remove related targeting options, such as “vaccine controversies.” Any ad accounts that keep on violating Facebook’s policies will be subject to further action.
Lastly, the company said content won’t be recommended on Instagram Explore or hashtag pages if it contains any hint of anti-vax theories. At the moment Facebook said what it would like to do is find a way to offer trustworthy content to people who have come across anti-vaccine content, but it’s still exploring ways of how that might be done.
All this comes after a number of health experts in February said that such misinformation that appears on the social media platform is having a harmful effect on the health of many people around the world. The World Health Organization backed that up, stating that “vaccine hesitancy” is now in the top 10 threats to global health.
At first Facebook seemed hesitant to take a hardline stance on the matter, telling the media that users have the option not to read such content, and if that content doesn’t breach the company’s guidelines there is nothing it can do. Facebook now seems to have modified that approach.
“Leading global health organizations, such as the World Health Organization and the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, have publicly identified verifiable vaccine hoaxes,” the company said. “If these vaccine hoaxes appear on Facebook, we will take action against them.”
Photo: Dawn Huczek/Flickr
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