Facebook Begins Hiding Anti-Vaccine Misinformation (usatoday.com)

America now has 206 confirmed cases of measles, its highest year-to-date number in over 25 years . Now USA Today reports on how Facebook is responding: In mid-February, Facebook told USA TODAY it had "taken steps" to reduce fake health news and anti-vaxx posts and said it was considering making anti-vaccination content on its site less visible amid a measles outbreak that has reignited a conversation about preventative shots. At the time, Facebook said, "we know we have more to do...." Revealed Thursday: The social network says it will reduce distribution and provide users with "authoritative information" on the topic.

Facebook is following the lead of Pinterest, which has blocked all searches using terms related to vaccines or vaccinations as part of a plan to stop the spread of misinformation related to anti-vaxx posts.... It will reduce the ranking of Facebook groups and Pages that spread misinformation about vaccinations in News Feed and Search. "These groups and Pages will not be included in recommendations or in predictions when you type into Search," Facebook said. When it discovers ads with misinformation about vaccinations, "we will reject them." Facebook said it has removed related targeting options, like "vaccine controversies," in ads.... Additionally, Facebook said it wouldn't show or recommend content that contains misinformation about vaccinations on the Explore section of Facebook-owned Instagram or on its hashtag pages.

Comments

I noticed this yesterday

[jrumney]

I noticed yesterday that my feed had become flooded with misinformation, but none of it was antivax. So it seems their strategy to hide the antivax misinformation is to bury it with an avalanche of other misinformation. Every time they tweak their fake news algorithms like this, I need to click on the menu to hide more fake news publishers so I can use facebook to keep up with what my friends are posting, as facebook was originally intended.

Re:This is the wrong approach

[SirAstral]

This would make a great way to do Eugenics.

Just need to make vaccinations mandatory and with the amount of citizen tracking and information we have we can selectively sterilize any group we want.

Hopefully we will start with the group that does want government mandated vaccinations.

We can selectively control entire groups through medication. Heck once DNA editing is in effect we can edit those folks. Heck if we find a way to modify our DNA to live much longer lives we can introduce accidental deaths for those no longer desired by authorities.

We can really go somewhere with this.

Legitimizes FB as a "source of good information"

[WoodstockJeff]

Whenever people cheer that FB is blocking "bad things", that makes it more tempting to thing, "If it is allowed on FB, it must be good!"

If people cultivate the idea that FB is a source of "information" that may or may not be correct, they'll be a bit less likely to fall for the next "As Seen On FB" craze, be it medical, political, or religious.

Wonderful news!

[Slugster]

Now there is two ways to delete your facebook account:

1. Proclaim yourself to be a Nazi, who advocates -- well, I don't know really. I think just saying that you are a Nazi might be enough? And a swastika picture I guess. (-how do you make that ASCII swastika again?-)

2. Proclaim yourself to suspect medical vaccines may sometimes be of questionable usefulness.