The company on Monday announced several ways it intends to better combat misinformation about vaccines, including making it harder to find accounts through Facebook-owned Instagram searches that discourage people from being vaccinated.
The announcement comes a day after CNN Business reported that Instagram has continued to include anti-waxxer accounts in its search results, while Facebook groups are easy to find against relationships against vaccines. The findings are of concern to public health experts, as the United States is in the midst of its biggest vaccination to address the coronavirus pandemic.
Facebook (FB) said Monday that it is expanding its efforts to remove false claims on its namesake platform and Instagram about the coronavirus, Covid-19 vaccines and vaccines in general during the pandemic.
The company also announced that it will point links in its “Covid-19 Information Center” to local health websites to help users determine if they are able to get the vaccine and how they can get it.
Facebook has long struggled to address the content of anti-vaxxer. In December, the company said it would reduce claims about Covid-19 vaccines rejected by public health officials, as well as unfounded conspiracy theories that they contain microchips. Previously, Facebook’s policies prohibited misinformation about Covid-19 that ‘contributes to the risk of imminent violence or physical harm’.
Amid a measles outbreak in the US nearly two years ago, Facebook promised to combat misinformation against vaccines by limiting the reach of such content on its platforms, but stopped a total ban. In March 2019, Facebook said it would ‘reduce the ranking of groups and pages that spread misinformation about vaccinations’ by not including it in recommendations or predictions when users type in the search bar. But even then, there was easy information on anti-vaxxer on Instagram.