As coronavirus inoculation efforts grow around the world, Facebook says it will do everything to block the spread of false vaccine claims. In practice, this means that the social network plans to ban a new set of false claims, in addition to the numerous false claims about vaccines and COVID-19 that it has already banned.
Among Facebook’s new targets: allegations include that vaccines are not effective or that they are toxic, dangerous or cause autism, all of which have been unmasked in the scientific community.
The platform had previously banned users from spreading falsehoods such as: masks are ineffective; vaccines cause infertility; vaccines contain tracking microchips; and vaccines don’t exist. In addition to a whole series of other dangerous erroneous information that has been unmasked by the World Health Organization or government agencies, according to a policy that went into effect in December.
In the fall of 2020, the company banned ads that discourage vaccination – with an exception made for defense ads on government vaccine policies – but at that time it did not prohibit unpaid user posts.
But even as Facebook’s policies evolved, these ideas survived and spread from private groups to the pages of Instagram influencers who sold health advice to new mothers. It is unclear whether Facebook’s recently expanded policy will be more effective than its previous attempts to crack down on COVID and vaccine-related misinformation.
“Millions of people are being fed dangerous lies that make them doubt the government’s guidelines on COVID and vaccines, prolonging the pandemic,” said Imran Ahmed, CEO of the Center for Countering Digital Hate surveillance group.
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