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Facebook on Monday announced a major crackdown on the spread of what the tech giant sees as “false allegations” about COVID-19 and vaccines.
Going forward, the company will remove any misinformation about the coronavirus and vaccines from its platform, including claims that the virus was made in a lab, that vaccines are not effective in preventing disease, that It is safer to get the disease than the vaccine, and vaccines, in general, are toxic, dangerous or cause autism.
“In addition to sharing reliable information, we are stepping up our efforts to remove false claims on Facebook and Instagram regarding COVID-19, COVID-19 vaccines and vaccines in general during the pandemic,” said the health official of the company, Kang-Xing Jin, said in a newsroom update. “Today, following consultations with major health organizations, including the WHO, we are expanding the list of false claims that we will be removing to include other denied claims about COVID-19 and vaccines.
The comprehensive list of bogus claims that can now be removed is listed on the Facebook Help Center webpage. It typically includes any content that downplays the severity of COVID-19 or discourages good health practices such as wearing a mask.
“We will begin enforcing this policy immediately, with a particular focus on pages, groups and accounts that violate these rules, and we will continue to expand our enforcement over the next few weeks,” wrote the vice president of l Integrity of Facebook, Guy Rosen. “Groups, pages, and accounts on Facebook and Instagram that repeatedly share these debunked claims can be removed altogether.”
Rosen added that the company plans to access credible information by “promot[ing] relevant and authoritative results “when people search for vaccine or coronavirus related content on the platform.
He noted that monitoring of content regarding the coronavirus pandemic has been ongoing since December, it is only now that the list of false claims has widened.
This decision, however, marks a significant departure from past actions. As The New York Times reported, in the past, the company has chosen to “cut down” on disinformation about the coronavirus, or push content lower on people’s news feeds. But now the company is taking action by completely removing this content.
According to the newsroom update, the new action is in response to a decision by the company’s supervisory board, which concluded its rules and standards for health-related disinformation were “improperly vague.”
The news comes as Facebook and other big social media companies come under close scrutiny for their censorship practices. If the new action serves as any indication, it appears Facebook has no plans to back down from engaging in aggressive content removal.
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