Facebook expands policies to take down more posts with vaccine-related misinformation, including assertions that vaccines cause autism

Facebook said on Monday that it plans to remove posts with erroneous claims about vaccines from across its platform, including taking down assertions …

New York Times 2021-02-09 Mike Isaac

Context & Ripple Effects

Facebook had already moved in stages: it reduced recommendations and ranking for anti-vaccine Pages and groups, then barred anti-vaccination ads while retaining room for policy advocacy. In December, it began removing debunked coronavirus-vaccine claims; the new policy extends that enforcement model across vaccine misinformation.

The change matters because Facebook is no longer relying only on distribution and advertising limits for covered vaccine claims. It is making removal the governing response, including for the autism assertion.

First-order effects

Facebook users, Pages, and groups posting covered vaccine misinformation face post removal rather than merely reduced reach or lost ad access.
Facebook’s moderation operation must apply a broader vaccine-misinformation policy across the platform, beyond the earlier coronavirus-vaccine focus.

Second-order effects

Anti-vaccine publishers lose the ability to treat Facebook’s ranking and recommendation systems as a fallback channel for claims now subject to removal.
The shift narrows the practical distinction between Facebook’s earlier anti-vaccination advertising ban and its treatment of vaccine content itself, concentrating enforcement on policy-defined claims rather than paid placement alone.

Third-order effects

Facebook is moving from friction-based moderation toward direct gatekeeping for a defined health-information category, expanding the platform’s responsibility for adjudicating what remains publishable.
If this removal-based approach is sustained, the relevant competitive question for large social platforms becomes the consistency and scope of policy enforcement, not only how much questionable content their ranking systems amplify.

The trend: Social platforms are escalating from limiting the reach and monetization of health misinformation to removing specified false claims outright.

Discussion

@mikeisaac Rat King on x
Monday News: Facebook expands its policies to take down all posts with vaccine-related misinformation, going beyond just COVID issues or previous positions *that will include taking down posts that vaccines cause Autism* https://www.nytimes.com/...
@jessreports Jesselyn Cook on x
On Facebook-owned Instagram, several of the top-ranked search results for “covid vaccine” beneath the CDC notice are anti-vax accounts. This one has just 48 followers — and almost exclusively pushes conspiracy theories — but Instagram has placed it near the top of the list. https…
@zeynep Zeynep Tufekci on x
I'm looking at the list of things that Facebook says it will take down as “misinformation” and is this retroactive? They'd then have to take down most of public health advice, including from the CDC and the WHO and major newspapers, from the first six months of the pandemic. http…
@timobrien Tim O'Brien on x
It only took....years: “For years, public health advocates and outside critics took issue with Facebook's refusal to remove false or misleading claims about vaccines. That led to a surge in false vaccine information.” https://www.nytimes.com/...
@fbnewsroom @fbnewsroom on x
We're running the largest worldwide campaign to promote authoritative information about COVID-19 vaccines. https://about.fb.com/...
@mikeisaac Rat King on x
Last note: this policy change was specifically caused by one of the FB Oversight Board rulings last month, which overturned a previous FB position https://about.fb.com/...
@zeynep Zeynep Tufekci on x
Looking at the list, Facebook may have to take down some current real news and public health statements, too. We have ongoing clinical trials with no placebo, for example. (UK heterologous prime boost trial) Also today's reports on ChAdOx1? May need to go under these guidelines. …
@theresa_chapple Dr. Theresa Chapple on x
Just imagine if this was their policy 15 years ago. https://twitter.com/...
@mikeisaac Rat King on x
one of the criticisms FB has frequently faced is allowing for loopholes in its policies which allow for a shift in tactics guess we watch and see what happens here.
@timmarchman Tim Marchman on x
I am extremely curious how exactly Facebook is going to find all the posts like one I'm looking at that says “Positive vibrational forces can eliminate all the negative Satanic black vibrations to end the mask wearing and HEX VAXX injections” in various languages. https://twitter…
@chr1sa Chris Anderson on x
This took Facebook more than five years to do, after huge amounts of lobbying both internally and externally. Why so long for such a no-brainer? https://www.theverge.com/...
@stevekovach Steve Kovach on x
I've lost count of how many times Facebook said it'd crack down on anti-vaxx posts and then fails to do so. https://twitter.com/...
@alexberenson Alex Berenson on x
Great. Will this include claims from health authorities or (possibility) well-meaning journalists that the vaccines have been proven to reduce clinically serious illness or death? Because those are... how do I put this... not so true. https://www.nytimes.com/...
@repmarkpocan Rep. Mark Pocan on x
Good. @RepJimmyGomez & I wrote to @Facebook last week demanding information on how they planned to combat the spread of COVID misinformation after anti-vaxxers shut down one of the country's largest vaccine distribution centers at Dodger Stadium. Misinformation costs lives. https…
@janelytv Jane Lytvynenko on x
I mean, sure, but I'm old enough to remember when Facebook made a very similar announcement about removing “COVID-19 related misinformation that could contribute to imminent physical harm” back in March 2020 yet here we are. https://about.fb.com/... https://twitter.com/...
@ahmedbaba_ Ahmed Baba on x
Facebook continues to take action only after damage has been done. Vaccine disinformation, just like political disinformation, has been a problem for years. It's a positive step, but they need to be way more proactive moving forward. Prevent fires instead of putting them out. htt…
@ericsturrock Eric Sturrock on x
I would not take down posts but put a sticker saying this info is wrong. Let people see stupid posts, more information is always better than less. Will make people better informed to know what's false Don't censor so much like some countries do to their internet. https://twitter.…
@ethank Ethan Kaplan on x
“We can't do it! We can't police it!” “Oh wait, we actually can now.” Rinse, repeat. https://twitter.com/...
@instagramcomms @instagramcomms on x
A thread on our latest COVID-19 work👇 https://twitter.com/...
@loisbeckett Lois Beckett on x
A month ago, Facebook said that calling the coronavirus vaccine the Biblical “mark of the beast” did not yet violate its vaccine misinformation policies. Its new guidelines say that this comparison is now forbidden: https://www.theguardian.com/ ... https://twitter.com/...
@caro1inehaskins Caroline Haskins on x
Thinking about this post I wrote last year where a pretty big account was running *ads* for vax-misinfo pamphlets and FB left it up even after I told them about it 🥴 https://www.buzzfeednews.com/ ... https://twitter.com/...
@hannahmeisel Hannah Meisel on x
Ah yes, two months into vaccine distribution when many have already been hardened by misinformation. https://twitter.com/...
@sree Sree Sreenivasan on x
This is progress, as autism-related vaccine disinformation by RFK Jr, Jenny McCarthy, Trump and others caused so much havoc in this country for so many years. https://twitter.com/...
@kuzmanovica Aleksandra Kuzmanovic on x
Thank you for your encouragement, support and leadership, @DrTedros! #ProudToBeWHO https://twitter.com/...
@alistaircoleman Alistair Coleman on x
Always too little too late from the social media companies. This should have happened years ago. https://twitter.com/...
@emorwee Emily Atkin on x
Cool! What about false climate science claims, @fbnewsroom⁩? https://www.nytimes.com/...
@drtedros Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus on x
We welcome @Facebook & @instagram's effort to bar misinformation on vaccines, incl #COVID19 vaccines. We commit to continuing our work with partners to stop misinformation. Thanks to colleagues Andy Pattison, @KuzmanovicA & Monta Reinfelde for persisting! https://about.fb.com/...
@lululemew @lululemew on x
That would have been nice in like...idk...2015? https://twitter.com/...
@issielapowsky Issie Lapowsky on x
One weird thing about this. Seems like Facebook initially planned to announce this last week, but they cancelled the press call last weekend, then pushed the news out today with a one-hour embargo. If you know why, my DMs are open. https://www.protocol.com/...
@mosseri @mosseri on x
Since the start of the pandemic, we've made continued investments to support and keep our community informed. We're announcing new features to connect people to vaccine resources, find vaccine sites near them, and launching the IG Covid Information Center https://about.fb.com/...
@owenthomas Owen Thomas on x
For anyone who's been following Facebook for the past, oh, say, decade and a half, this is a familiar pattern: https://www.cnn.com/... https://about.fb.com/...
@nytimes @nytimes on x
Facebook said that it plans to remove posts with false vaccine claims. Instead of targeting only misinformation around Covid vaccines, the update encompasses false claims around all vaccines. https://www.nytimes.com/...
@cnn @cnn on x
Misleading and fearmongering content about the Covid vaccines continues to spread at a time when the stakes couldn't be higher: misinformation about the vaccine can mean life or death https://www.cnn.com/...
@zeynep Zeynep Tufekci on x
There are *still* countries where public health authorities do not recommend masks (besides being standard advice from WHO till June 2020). Tons of mainstream media articles from 2020 with claims of masks making you sick/higher risk for infection. What about those? https://twitte…
@evelyndouek Evelyn Douek on x
But I thought the Facebook Oversight Board's decisions could only ever affect a handful of pieces of content? https://twitter.com/...
@sarahfrier Sarah Frier on x
Facebook will start de-ranking Instagram accounts that discourage the Covid-19 vaccine. If accounts and Facebook groups continually share misinformation, they could be banned: https://www.bloomberg.com/...
@jigolden Jenna Golden on x
I think this is a smart move by Facebook. But, if they have the ability and bandwidth to regulate and monitor false information around vaccines, then they can likely apply the same rigor towards political and advocacy advertising. https://www.nytimes.com/...
@oliverdarcy Oliver Darcy on x
If you search for “vaccines” on Instagram or Facebook, you'll see results for anti-vaxx pages and groups. Why? FB spox says the company doesn't actually crack down on pages pushing broad anti-vaxx narratives unless there is specific false info at play. https://www.cnn.com/...

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