Early findings from an internal study by Facebook about doubts about the coronavirus vaccine apparently include an overlap between users who express skepticism about vaccines and accounts linked to the QAnon conspiracy theory.
Facebook’s internal research is looking at posts that do not fall under the ban on misinformation about vaccines, but fall into a more gray area, The Washington Post reported Sunday. documents on the study.
As part of the research, Facebook’s data scientists divided U.S. users, groups and pages into 638 population segments to look at the hesitant views on the vaccine, the Post reports.
Early evidence from the internal findings suggests an overlap between the communities that are skeptical about vaccines and those linked to the baseless QAnon conspiracy theory, according to the Post.
Facebook promised in October to ban all accounts linked to the conspiracy theory.
However, users are constantly forming new QAnon groups, accounts and pages using conflicting tactics to hide their connection to the conspiracy theory, according to Facebook. As Facebook identifies the pages, it is removed, the company says.
The early findings of the internal study apparently also indicate that most of the content of the vaccine hesitation comes from a relatively small proportion of users.
The internal study found that only ten of the 638 population segments contained half of all vaccine hesitation on the platform, and in the population segment with the most vaccine hesitation, only 111 users contributed to half of the hesitation, according to the Post.
The document viewed by the Post did not identify how Facebook defined a segment or a grouped community, but noted that the segments could be at least 3 million people.
Facebook says it is standard to study the types of content on its platforms to understand trends and identify emerging issues to take action against potentially harmful content.
The report is just one way Facebook has acted to combat misinformation against coronavirus vaccine amid increasing investigations by officials into dealing with such false claims.
“Since the beginning of the pandemic, we have partnered with more than 60 global health experts and studied the content related to COVID-19, including vaccines and misinformation, to inform our policy,” said Dani Lever, spokesman of Facebook, said in a statement.
Facebook “regularly” studies issues such as COVID-19, mood, prejudice and hate speech to “understand emerging trends to understand emerging trends so that we can build, refine and measure our products,” Lever said.
‘Public health experts have made it clear that tackling vaccine hesitation is a top priority in the COVID response, which is why we have launched a global campaign that has already linked 2 billion people to reliable information from health experts and false allegations about COVID removed. and vaccines. This ongoing work will help inform our efforts, ‘Lever added.
In February, Facebook said it would remove all scrapped claims about the coronavirus vaccine during the pandemic, and on Monday the company said it had removed 2 million pieces of content from Facebook and Instagram.
In a Monday blog post, Facebook also said it would expand its efforts to combat misinformation against coronavirus vaccines by adding labels to all posts discussing the vaccines.
Facebook said it would initially add labels with information from the World Health Organization to posts discussing the safety of vaccines, and in the coming weeks would roll out labels for more general posts about the vaccines that would point users to information about them.
The pressure on Facebook to update its policy comes after President Biden
Joe Biden The Hill’s Morning Report – Presented by Facebook – Biden takes the road, shows COVID-19 enlightenment law in Oregon, senator takes center stage in democratic debate over filibuster This week: Democrats look at next step on bill coronavirus relief MORE‘s address last week stating that all U.S. adults should be eligible for the vaccine by May 1.
Meanwhile, polls have indicated that there will be challenges over vaccination – especially among certain populations.
A PBS NewsHour / NPR / Marist poll released last week found that nearly 30 percent of Americans generally said they did not intend to be vaccinated. In the same poll among men who identify themselves as Republicans, it was found that almost half said they did not intend to get the coronavirus vaccine.