Facebook launches global campaign to fight Covid-19 vaccine misinformation

Facebook announced that it is running the largest worldwide campaign to promote authoritative information about COVID-19 vaccines. Facebook's efforts to curb vaccine misinformation include:

  • Helping people find where and when they can get vaccinated — similar to how we helped people find information about how to vote during elections
  • Giving $120 million in ad credits to help health ministries, NGOs and UN agencies reach billions of people around the world with COVID-19 vaccine and preventive health information
  • Expanding our efforts to remove false claims on Facebook and Instagram about COVID-19 and vaccines
  • Providing data to inform effective vaccine delivery and educational efforts to build trust in COVID-19 vaccines

Facebook is expanding its efforts to remove false claims on Facebook and Instagram about COVID-19, COVID-19 vaccines and vaccines in general during the pandemic. Since December, the company removed false claims about COVID-19 vaccines that have been debunked by public health experts. Following consultations with leading health organizations, including the World Health Organization (WHO), Facebook is expanding the list of false claims to include additional debunked claims about the coronavirus and vaccines. This includes claims such as: 

  • COVID-19 is man-made or manufactured
  • Vaccines are not effective at preventing the disease they are meant to protect against
  • It’s safer to get the disease than to get the vaccine
  • Vaccines are toxic, dangerous or cause autism

The company will begin enforcing this policy immediately, with a particular focus on Pages, groups and accounts that violate these rules, and will continue to expand our enforcement over the coming weeks. Groups, Pages and accounts on Facebook and Instagram that repeatedly share these debunked claims may be removed altogether. Facebook also requires some admins for groups with admins or members who have violated our COVID-19 policies to temporarily approve all posts within their group. Claims about COVID-19 or vaccines that do not violate these policies will still be eligible for review by third-party fact-checkers, and if they are rated false, they will be labeled and demoted.  

When people search for vaccine or COVID-19 related content on Facebook, the company will promote relevant, authoritative results and provide third-party resources to connect people to expert information about vaccines. On Instagram, in addition to surfacing authoritative results in Search, in the coming weeks the social network is making it harder to find accounts in search that discourage people from getting vaccinated.

Till date the company has removed more than 12 million pieces of content on Facebook and Instagram containing misinformation that could lead to imminent physical harm. They've partnered with governments in more than 120 countries, as well as multilateral organizations like the World Health Organization (WHO) and UNICEF, to deliver timely information about COVID-19, including through helplines on WhatsApp. 

 

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