Facebook Takes Aim at More Misinformation Related to the Covid-19 Vaccine

Facebook revealed additional categories of debunked information regarding the Covid-19 vaccine that it will begin removing from Facebook and Instagram starting Monday, as well as a global campaign to provide its users with authoritative information about the vaccine. The social network said it teamed up with leading health organizations, including the World Health Organization, to expand its list of false claims about the vaccine to include: Covid-19 is man-made or manufactured.Vaccines are not effective at preventing the disease they are meant to protect against.It’s safer to get the disease than to get the vaccine.Vaccines are toxic, dangerous, or cause autism. The new policy will be enforced starting Monday with a focus on pages, groups and accounts that violate the rules, and Facebook said enforcements will expand over the coming weeks, with pages and accounts on Facebook and Instagram that repeatedly share claims of this type facing permanent bans. Some group administrators of groups where admins or members have violated Facebook’s policies related to the vaccine may be required to temporarily approve all posts within their groups. Claims about Covid-19 or the vaccine that do not violate Facebook’s policies are still eligible for review by the social network’s third-party fact-checkers, and they will be labeled and demoted if they are deemed to contain false information. Facebook head of health Kang-Xing Jin said in a blog post Monday that since Covid-19 was declared to be a public health emergency early last year, the social network has connected over 2 billion people from 189 countries to reliable information about the pandemic through its Coronavirus (Covid-19) Information Center and other informational messages, and over 12 million pieces of content on Facebook and Instagram have been removed for containing misinformation that could lead to imminent physical harm. As part of the massive global campaign kicking off on its platform this week, Facebook will take steps to inform people on where and when they can get vaccinated, similar to its efforts to provide information on how and where to vote during last year’s elections. Starting this week, the Coronavirus (Covid-19) Information Center in the U.S. will feature links to local ministry of health websites to let people know whether they are eligible for the vaccine and how to become eligible and receive the vaccine. In the coming weeks, this feature will be expanded to more countries as further information becomes available. Facebook is providing $120 million in ad credits to health ministries, nongovernmental organizations and United Nations agencies, enabling them to run campaigns on its platform to promote accurate information about the vaccine and encourage people to get vaccinated. The social network is also providing training and marketing support for governments and health organizations to further these efforts. The Coronavirus (Covid-19) Information Center will be extended to Instagram soon. Facebook teamed up with the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health to amplify content and reach Black, Latinx and Native American communities with science- and evidence-based content that addresses the questions and concerns these communities have about the vaccine, as vaccine intent and access may be lower among those groups, and it is working with AARP to reach U.S. users over 50, including Spanish-language content for Hispanic and Latinx communities. Finally, the social network said over 50 million people responded to the survey it began conducting last year with Carnegie Mellon University Delphi Research Group and the University of Maryland, and data from that survey has helped public health officials around the world craft their Covid-19 response efforts. Jin said in a statement, "While the virus itself doesn’t discriminate, it burned a pathway through a discriminatory world. For our part, Facebook has been in a unique position to help by connecting billions to reliable information from health experts. That’s why we’re launching the largest worldwide campaign promoting authoritative Covid-19 vaccine information to help put this pandemic behind us. That doesn't mean going back to normal, since the old normal produced our present disparities, but it does mean laying a foundation on which to build more equitable health outcomes for everyone.”

Coronavirus

Facebook Takes Aim at More Misinformation Related to the Covid-19 Vaccine

The social network kicked off a massive global information campaign

David Cohen

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David Cohen