On Monday, the company announced several ways to combat vaccine misinformation, including making it harder to find accounts through Facebook-owned Instagram searches that discourage people from getting vaccinated.
The announcement comes a day after CNN Business reported that Instagram continued to feature anti-vaxxer accounts prominently in search results, while Facebook groups that denounce vaccines remained easy to find. The findings raised concern among public health experts as the United States embarks on the largest ever vaccine rollout to address the coronavirus pandemic.
Facebook (FB) said Monday it is “expanding” its efforts to remove false claims on its eponymous platform and Instagram about the coronavirus, Covid-19 vaccines and vaccines in general during the pandemic.
The company also announced that it will display links to local health websites in its “Covid-19 Information Center” to help users determine if they are eligible for the vaccine and how to get one.
Facebook has long struggled to tackle anti-vaxxer content. In December, the company said it would scrap claims about Covid-19 vaccines debunked by public health officials, such as baseless conspiracy theories that they contain microchips. Previously, Facebook’s policy banned misinformation about Covid-19 that “adds to the risk of imminent violence or physical harm.”
Amid a measles outbreak in the US nearly two years ago, Facebook pledged to combat vaccine misinformation by limiting the reach of such content on its platforms, but withdrew from a total ban. In March 2019, Facebook said it would “reduce the rankings of groups and pages spreading misinformation about vaccinations” by not including them in recommendations or predictions when users type in the search bar. But even then, anti-vaxxer information was easily searchable on Instagram.