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Facebook is cracking down on content containing dubious health claims and miracle cures
Facebook Inc. announced today that it will curb the spread of content on the platform that contains health-related information not been grounded in proper science.
The move follows an investigative report by The Wall Street Journal today that revealed Facebook and YouTube were “flooded” with “scientifically dubious and potentially harmful information.”
In a blog post titled “Addressing Sensational Health Claims,” Facebook admitted that sensational and sometimes misleading health-related content appears on the platform. Over the last month the company has been busy down-ranking content that contains “exaggerated or sensational health claims” and “posts attempting to sell products or services based on health-related claims.” But Facebook only today announced what it has been doing.
The company said it did what it has done with sensational clickbait, training the algorithm to spot phrases and words common to sensational health claims and miracle cures. Second, Facebook said it looked at common language related to medications or pills that offer a quick and easy cure. That kind of content won’t be removed, but its spread will be minimized on the news feed.
“Posts with sensational health claims or solicitation using health-related claims will have reduced distribution,” explained Facebook. “Pages should avoid posts about health that exaggerate or mislead people and posts that try to sell products using health-related claims. If a Page stops posting this content, their posts will no longer be affected by this change.”
Facebook isn’t alone in being criticized for helping to disseminate dubious health content and dodgy cures. Earlier this year Google LLC-owned YouTube was in the spotlight for allowing content to surface and spread quickly relating to a potentially very dangerous “autism cure.”
Since then, the company has said it will limit the spread of misinformation, such as content telling people the Earth is flat or the moon landing was fake. YouTube also said dubious health cures were part of the “fake news” purge.
Amazon.com Inc. also recently took down books containing dubious content relating to a cure for autism.
Photo: Marco Verch/Flickr
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