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posted by chromas on Thursday March 14 2019, @01:20PM   Printer-friendly
from the threw-the-facebook-out-with-the-vax-water dept.

Facebook cracks down on vaccine misinformation

In a blog post, the Menlo Park, Calif. company said it will reject any ads containing misinformation about vaccines, remove any targeted advertising options like 'vaccine controversies,' and will no longer show or recommend content containing this type of misinformation on Instagram Explore or hashtag pages."

Submitted via IRC for FatPhil

Combatting Vaccine Misinformation

We are working to tackle vaccine misinformation on Facebook by reducing its distribution and providing people with authoritative information on the topic.

[...] Leading global health organizations, such as the World Health Organization and the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, have publicly identified verifiable vaccine hoaxes. If these vaccine hoaxes appear on Facebook, we will take action against them.

For example, if a group or Page admin posts this vaccine misinformation, we will exclude the entire group or Page from recommendations, reduce these groups and Pages’ distribution in News Feed and Search, and reject ads with this misinformation.

We also believe in providing people with additional context so they can decide whether to read, share, or engage in conversations about information they see on Facebook. We are exploring ways to give people more accurate information from expert organizations about vaccines at the top of results for related searches, on Pages discussing the topic, and on invitations to join groups about the topic. We will have an update on this soon.

We are fully committed to the safety of our community and will continue to expand on this work.


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  • (Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday March 14 2019, @02:27PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday March 14 2019, @02:27PM (#814213)

    In 2015, the Pew Research Center conducted a survey of 2 thousand adults which concluded about 12 percent of liberals and 10 percent of conservatives believed that childhood vaccines are unsafe.

    I'm guessing that 12% vs. 10% isn't statistically significant in this case.

    It just shows that stupid knows no boundaries.

    It's depressing to think about. Especially on pi day [wikipedia.org]. Sigh.

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