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

Vaccination = Homeopathy

[Anonymous Coward]

Maybe vaccination is the real health scam here...

Re: This is the wrong approach

[gweihir]

Oh, this case is hiding misinformation. There is no information that would support not getting vaccinated against the measles. There is a large body of lies though that support this stance and a large number of stupid and badly educated people that believe these lies. No, the problem is the precedent, and once such censorship has been used to suppress clearly false information, it will be used in successively less clear cases.

Re:So it's Now Facebook Settles Science ?

[SirAstral]

Actually yes, it really is "facebook settles science"

In fact it has always been this way and you see that clearly from the "there is a scientific consensus" people. A consensus does not make anything fact or fiction. Heck since science is more often wrong than right and the fact that most studies cannot be reproduced, it makes it very bad to stifle any information, no matter how obscene it sounds.

My favorite goto argument for this is that once upon a time "everyone thought the earth was flat, the center of the universe, and that the sun orbited earth." AND they often wanted to kill, or harm, or jail anyone that said otherwise! These kinds of people still exist, and you know who they are when they start trash talking anyone that does not agree with every little thing they say.

Re:This is the wrong approach

[gweihir]

Even though fundamentally stupid people like you believe this, it is not the case. What actually happens is that complete morons like you have created a real problem (loss of herd immunity) and the authorities are using that as a welcome opportunity to push censorship. But the problem is you. You are responsible for giving them a real, solid reason to do this. Your stupidity and arrogance is astounding and you are guilty of making the world a worse place.

They do

[rsilvergun]

You have the right to drive. The right to drive 100mph was taken from you to protect you and everyone around you. We all give up freedoms in exchange for order because order isn't just nice, it fucking rocks. Order is why my water is clean. It's why I just finished lunch. And it's why I didn't get my head bashed in by angry bandits (and no, nobody on /. is going to make it in a dog eat dog world, we spend too much time posting and not enough time lifting weights and combat training).

You don't have the right to put everyone around you in danger (google "herd immunity") because you're too dense to go read the actual science around vaccines. Period.

Re:Legitimizes FB as a "source of good information

[swillden]

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!"

The slippery slope fallacy is called a fallacy for very good reason.