In the recent development, the social media giant Facebook will no longer allow ads that spread misinformation regarding vaccines as a part of an effort to reduce the spread of “vaccine hoaxes”.
This move comes as Facebook faces growing heat over its role in promoting anti-vaccine propaganda. In their official blog, they said, “We are working to tackle vaccine misinformation on Facebook by reducing its distribution and providing people with authoritative information on the topic.”
The social media platform is taking various steps in the back-end like reduce the ranking of groups and Pages that spread misinformation about vaccinations, banning ads and content and more. Furthermore, the company is also exploring ways to share educational information about vaccines when people come across misinformation on this topic.
In fact, 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.
“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,” said the company.