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Facebook Becomes 'A Haven For the Anti-Vaccination Movement' (siliconvalley.com)
"As a disturbing number of measles outbreaks crop up around the United States, Facebook is facing challenges combating widespread misinformation about vaccinations on its platform," reported the Washington Post Wednesday, saying Facebook "has become a haven for the anti-vaccination movement" and that "the rise of 'anti-vaxx' Facebook groups is overlapping with a resurgence of measles" in the U.S.
Facebook has publicly declared that fighting misinformation is one of its top priorities. But when it comes to policing misleading content about vaccinations, the site faces a thorny challenge. The bulk of anti-vaccination content doesn't violate Facebook's community guidelines for inciting "real-world harm," according to a spokesperson, and the site's algorithms often promote unscientific pages or posts about the issue...
Wendy Sue Swanson, a pediatrician at Seattle Children's Hospital and spokeswoman for the American Academy of Pediatrics, recently met with Facebook strategists about dealing with public health issues, including misinformation about vaccines, on the platform... "Facebook isn't responsible for changing quacks but they do have an opportunity to change the way information is served up." But Facebook's algorithms often promote anti-vaccination content over widely accepted, scientifically backed posts or pages about vaccinations. A recent investigation from the Guardian found that Facebook search results regarding vaccines were "dominated by anti-vaccination propaganda...." Facebook also accepted advertising revenue from Vax Truther, Anti-Vaxxer, Vaccines Revealed and Michigan for Vaccine Choice, among others, according to another investigation from the Guardian [which found Facebook even offers the ability to target 900,000 users that Facebook has helpfully identified as interested in "vaccine controversies."]
Last month YouTube promised to stop recommending videos that "could misinform users in harmful ways," and later told the Guardian that that would include anti-vaccine videos. The Guardian also noted this week that one anti-vaccination group on Facebook has over 150,000 members. But Facebook told the Post Wednesday that by not deleting the pseudoscience, they're actually giving their users an opportunity to speak up on their own and share factual counter-arguments themselves.
By Thursday Facebook added that it was "exploring" additional steps, including "reducing or removing this type of content from recommendations, including 'Groups You Should Join,' and demoting it in search results, while also ensuring that higher quality and more authoritative information is available."
Wendy Sue Swanson, a pediatrician at Seattle Children's Hospital and spokeswoman for the American Academy of Pediatrics, recently met with Facebook strategists about dealing with public health issues, including misinformation about vaccines, on the platform... "Facebook isn't responsible for changing quacks but they do have an opportunity to change the way information is served up." But Facebook's algorithms often promote anti-vaccination content over widely accepted, scientifically backed posts or pages about vaccinations. A recent investigation from the Guardian found that Facebook search results regarding vaccines were "dominated by anti-vaccination propaganda...." Facebook also accepted advertising revenue from Vax Truther, Anti-Vaxxer, Vaccines Revealed and Michigan for Vaccine Choice, among others, according to another investigation from the Guardian [which found Facebook even offers the ability to target 900,000 users that Facebook has helpfully identified as interested in "vaccine controversies."]
Last month YouTube promised to stop recommending videos that "could misinform users in harmful ways," and later told the Guardian that that would include anti-vaccine videos. The Guardian also noted this week that one anti-vaccination group on Facebook has over 150,000 members. But Facebook told the Post Wednesday that by not deleting the pseudoscience, they're actually giving their users an opportunity to speak up on their own and share factual counter-arguments themselves.
By Thursday Facebook added that it was "exploring" additional steps, including "reducing or removing this type of content from recommendations, including 'Groups You Should Join,' and demoting it in search results, while also ensuring that higher quality and more authoritative information is available."
Letting these tards on the internet was a horrible, horrible mistake. Non-tech people weren't ready for the internet.
They may never be ready.
Haha actually anti vaxxers are left wingers who don't watch Faux News
The anti-vax movement is not politically polarized. Instead, it attracts kooks from both the right and left. It is associated with political extremism regardless of direction. Left-wingnuts see vaccines as a corporate conspiracy. Right-wingnuts see vaccines as a government conspiracy. Moderates on both the left and right vaccinate their kids.
but the bulk of the left wing will call them out. And the closest thing the left has to an establishment (the late night talk shows and maybe these guys) call the anti-vax crowd out all the time.
The right wing, by comparison, elected an anti-vaxxer to the highest office of the land. I'd say GP is correct here.
The difference is left tries to reason with our kooks. The right is using them to achieve other political ends.
Hell, if I want to take it further that kind of "ends justifies the means" is why the right wing in America can welcome both the anti-Semitic white supremacists with Trump's "Both sides are bad" comment while also being staunch supporters of Israel.
The right has goals rather than principals. Makes them strong, but it also means they let a lot of fucked up shit slide that the left doesn't.
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Funny thing about Polio is sanitation made it really bad. Before the 20th century or slightly earlier, everyone was exposed and bad reactions to the virus were relatively rare. Bring in sanitation and large outbreaks became common and affected older people where the affects were usually worse.
Luckily Polio vaccines were discovered/invented that worked well enough though people did get Polio from the live vaccine to the point where as of 2017, there were more cases caused by vaccine then wild Polio.https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poliomyelitis#History and the vaccine section.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inverted_totalitarianism
Conspiracy theories live and thrive because the official narrative has flaws or is implausible or if no official narrative has been presented.
Historically, many official narratives have ended up being outright lies. Weapons of mass-destruction in Iraq. We are still over there looking for them. Bound to find them any day. Many wars throughout history started on an official story that was a lie. Many of the people in the civil rights movement thought the government was spying on them. It was not until decades later that this was proved to be true. Their fears were dismissed at the time as conspiracy theories. It is very naive to think that the official story is true about everything. But of course, this should not be carte blanche to make up and spread ridiculous conspiracy theories either. So, if you ask me, conspiracy theories live and flourish because there is ample historical precedent for conspiracies.
In the case of vaccines, the lack of nuance in the messaging of the pro-vaccination crowd leads anti-vaxers to believe that the pro-vax people are just brainwashed robots who have not done any research but instead are parroting the opinions put forth by vaccine makers and public health professionals who make money from vaccines. The anti-vax people think they have taken the red pill while the pro-vaxxers have all taken the blue-pill.
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