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Ads on Facebook are spreading misinformation about anti-HIV drugs
While many are focused on Facebook's unwillingness to curb false political ads, there appears to be another misinformation campaign going unchecked. The Guardian and GLAAD have noted that personal injury law firms continue to run Facebook ads making false claims about the risks of Truvada, a drug meant to reduce the likelihood of HIV transmission. Some float the specters of bone loss and kidney damage despite evidence that the risks of either are "not clinically significant," according to the San Francisco AIDS Foundation.
GLAAD said it contacted Facebook's public policy team and reached out to five fact-checking agencies, but the social network answered by pointing to a public ad policy page explaining why ads can be removed. In response, GLAAD posted an open letter asking Facebook to remove the ads, with support coming from 50 organizations, New York Governor Andrew Cuomo and Senator Elizabeth Warren. The advocacy group is buying ads on Facebook to promote the letter among the LGBTQ+ community.
We've asked Facebook for comment.
(Score: 1, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Monday December 16 2019, @07:54PM (6 children)
>Everyone knows by now the outcome of last week's UK election, and the submission that you are referring to adds nothing to that knowledge, so there seems to be little point in pushing it out on the front page.
So you didn't approve it when it was submitted because everyone would know about it a week later?
Color me skeptical that SoylentNews is that concerned with avoiding days old news, given that most of the posts here are just weeks-old Hacker News submissions.
(Score: 2) by Freeman on Monday December 16 2019, @08:44PM (4 children)
Feel free to get all your news from Hacker News, then. Personally, I like the simple no-nonsense Soylent News interface. The lack of advertisements makes me feel like it's 1995 all over again. In a good way.
Joshua 1:9 "Be strong and of a good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed: for the Lord thy God is with thee"
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday December 16 2019, @09:19PM
Needs more <blink>blinking text</blink> and under construction [textfiles.com] graphics.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday December 16 2019, @10:25PM
Unfortunately the Hacker News commentariat is a bigger echo chamber than this place, they just post things sooner.
(Score: 1) by Acabatag on Monday December 16 2019, @11:23PM (1 child)
Is there really no advertising on SN? I guess these days I have no way to know....
(Score: 2) by Freeman on Tuesday December 17 2019, @03:44PM
#1 No advertisements built into the UI. Unlike 99% of the internet.
#2 The Soylent News staff is run by volunteers, who have stated they don't post advertisement stories. They don't post stories they are being paid to post, that they aren't getting kickbacks to post, or other advertisement like things.
At some point, you gotta trust someone and until proven otherwise, I trust that they're not posting advertisements.
Joshua 1:9 "Be strong and of a good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed: for the Lord thy God is with thee"
(Score: 2) by janrinok on Tuesday December 17 2019, @01:42AM
Please re-read what I wrote. I cannot see a link in that submission to any of our main areas of interest. In fact, it was submitted before the actual count of votes had been completed so its own content was already of dubious interest by the time it was received.
Furthermore, we are not a news aggregation service. There are many other sites that do that role far better than we ever could. So, in most cases, timeliness is not a priority when it comes to getting stories to the front page. With our volunteer staff it is unlikely that submissions will be read as soon as they are received, and they may sit in the submission queue for several hours before anyone is able to even take a look at them. Rather we try to publish stories that have been received over recent days. We also try to select stories which cover the area of our interests and which could generate a useful and interesting discussion. As many have already said, most come here for the discussion and not to be updated on the latest news which is easily available elsewhere.