Facebook blocks false statements about vaccinations for COVID-19
On Thursday, Facebook Inc, following a similar announcement by Alphabet Inc’s YouTube in October, said that would delete misleading statements about COVID19 vaccines that were debunked by public health experts.
The step extends the existing rules for Facebook against falsehoods and myths of conspiracy about the pandemic. The social media company claims that coronavirus misinformation is taken down, posing a risk of “imminent harm, while marking and decreasing the dissemination of other false claims that do not meet that threshold.
In a blog post, Facebook said the global policy shift came in response to reports that COVID19 vaccines would soon be rolled out across the globe.
Two drug firms, Pfizer Inc. and Moderna Inc., have requested their vaccine candidates for emergency use permission from U.S. authorities. On Wednesday, Britain approved the Pfizer vaccine, moving ahead of the rest of the world in the race to launch the most important program of mass inoculation in history.
Over the pandemic, disinformation about the latest coronavirus vaccines has proliferated on social media, including by viral anti-vaccine posts spread across numerous channels and according to researchers, by various ideological groups.
“This will include false statements about safety, efficacy, ingredients or side effects of the vaccines. For example, we will delete false statements that COVID19 vaccines contain microchips,” the company said in a blog post. It said that, based on changing guidelines from public health officials, it will change the arguments it excludes.
In October, Facebook, which has taken measures to disclose authoritative vaccine information,
also said it will ban advertising that deter people from having vaccines.
A famous anti-vaccine page and a large private community were banned by Facebook in recent weeks –
one for regularly violating COVID propaganda laws and the other for spreading the idea of the QAnon conspiracy.
Source: Japan Today
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