The anti-vaccine issues of Instagram and Facebook are not surprising

Instagram is full of conspiracy theories and anti-vaccine pages, Taylor Lorenz reported Thursday for the Atlantic.

The platform belonging to Facebook, she writes, "is she teeming [with] conspiracy theories, viral disinformation and extremem memes, all linked in a chain through a network of accounts with incredible algorithmic reach and millions of collective followers. "

The Atlantic investigation comes just two weeks after Monika Bickert, Facebook's Vice President of Global Policy Management, wrote in an article in the company's Facebook blog that "fighting misinformation about vaccines ". vaccinations on Instagram Explore or on pages with a hashtag. "In response to the survey, a spokesperson told Hill:" As part of our work to combat health misinformation on Instagram, we are looking for ways to minimize recommendations regarding this issue. content and these accounts. than post it on Instagram. "The spokesman specifically mentioned the Explorer tabs, the hashtags and" Suggested for you ".

But Instagram seems to be making slow progress in removing anti-vaccine content. CNN reports that the platform has blocked hashtags such as #vaccinescauseautism and #vaccinesarepoison, the most obvious disinformation campaigns. Yet on Friday morning, when I typed "vaccines" into the Instagram search bar, the first suggested result was the @vaccinesuncovered account, which has 43,000 subscribers and the bio "Real Stories." Injuries related to the vaccine. Death of vaccine. What traditional media will not show you, "and links to a" soft rehab ". After the generic hashtag #vaccines (which also contains anti-vaccine content), the following suggested results were the @vaccines_are_toxic account, the hashtag #vaccineskill, @christiansagainstvaccines and @vaccinesaregenocide.

As Lorenz points out, part of the more general problem with misinformation on Instagram is that it is not obvious to non-teens that the platform is used for anything other than sharing personal photos. His reports over the last few years have clearly shown, however, that many young people view the platform as a primary source of information, a personal blog and a place to develop a world view that is often pushed through prisms of irony.

Instagram

Despite the in-depth scientific debate on the most popular claims about the dangers of vaccines, Instagram is not the only major online platform with a disinformation problem, or even an anti-vaccine problem. First, it is an extension of Facebook's longstanding problem of promoting false science and conspiracy theories. Both YouTube and Pinterest have been in a hurry to take serious action over the last month and Amazon has recently removed the list of all anti-vaccine books for sale on its website. (A recent report by Vox's Julia Belluz also pointed out that social media is only part of the totally strange and dangerous spread of anti-vaccine sentiment, which has been disseminated through traditional media such as books, movies and documentaries funded by celebrities.)

In a follow-up report for Motherboard, released Thursday, journalist Joseph Cox highlights the importance of Instagram's recommendation engine, which can push a user who may follow a misleading or malicious medical page to follow a dozen in minutes. The algorithm combines all sorts of health-related content and makes Cox pass between anti-vaccine pages and accounts interested in "herbal diets".

That's why, while Atlantic is disturbing and revealing, it's hardly surprising that this content is spreading on Instagram. It is a platform built to literally exchange appearances and to merchandise illusions of health and beauty and domestic bliss. It has been used for years to generate revenue for companies or individuals with an image to sell and little scientific knowledge to support. .

Last month, Suzanne Zapello published for Vox an article on the rise of medicine, explaining how large pharmaceutical companies began to associate with influencers to sell new drugs and medical devices, using them. to create confidence and enthusiasm around a new product of beautiful results and editing of all that is uncomfortable. Last year, the Natural Cycles fertility tracking app exploded on Instagram and was touted as foolproof contraception, concealing its 93% effectiveness and the many unwanted pregnancies that result from an organized selection of perfect smiles. The laxative tea industry – or teatox – is legendary on Instagram right now. Influential people have been notoriously well-understood in the six figures to promote the miracle solution of weight loss, widely criticized by health professionals. Then, it was adaptogens. Now it's celery juice.

The welfare boom is obviously not entirely perverse and it is difficult to drink celery juice for a few weeks, because a celebrity is probably rude, but not on the same level as denying your child a vaccination. . But when recommendation algorithms connect the beautiful and the wrong in one big and glamorous spider web, it can be hard to know when to go out.

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