Twitter fights vaccine misinformation with a new search tool

If you're looking for vaccine-related tweets starting Friday, the first thing you see on Twitter is a message from the US Department of Health and Human Services that directs you to reliable health information instead of anti-vax disinformation.

Last week, Twitter announced the launch of a new search tool urging users to visit vaccines.org, managed by HHS officials. In recent months, social media companies such as Facebook and Twitter have been under intense pressure from lawmakers and the public to remove anti-vaccine propaganda from their platforms.

"We are committed to protecting the health of the public conversation on Twitter," reads the blog. "Ensuring that individuals can find information from authoritative sources is a key part of this mission."

The tool currently only appears on Android, iOS and Twitter mobile sites in the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, Brazil and Korea. The desktop version of the tool is accessible to users in Japan, Indonesia, Singapore and predominantly Spanish-speaking Latin American countries.

Twitter uses a similar tool that invites users to search for terms related to suicide to contact a hotline for help. According to the blog, Twitter intends to extend this tool to other search terms related to health in the future.

"This new investment builds on our ongoing work to combat the artificial amplification of non-credible content on the safety and effectiveness of vaccines," the blog said.

Last week, it was announced that Instagram would hide the results of anti-vax hashtags search on its platform, thus blocking the visibility of any associated content. In March, Facebook said it would help fight misinformation about vaccines, but reporters continued to find publications designed to deter people from being vaccinated.