Facebook says it will prohibit ads on its platform that deject vaccinations, with an exception which is carved out for advocacy ads about vaccine policies from the government.
The multinational company has already banned ads about hoaxes on vaccines like the untrue idea that autism is caused by vaccinations. The newest policy expands the prohibitions to ads that have created a discouragement for vaccines.
Nonetheless, Facebook also said that ads that support for or against legislation or policies from the government around vaccines involving a COVID-19 vaccine will still be permitted. These ads will still have to be accepted by the firm as political ads and comprise a ‘paid for by’ tag on who is backing them.
Unpaid posts by users or groups that do not encourage vaccinations will also still be acceptable, the latest policy only involves paid advertisements.
It too said that it will run a campaign which is going to be gain information and it will help people to get their flu shots this year.
The company has decided to take other steps to prevent the spread of vaccine and COVID-19 related fabrication on its platform. In 2019, the company said that it will start to hide groups and pages that spread wrong information about vaccinations.
Image from Facebook
Since the outbreak, Facebook has made rules strict. For example, it indorses articles that expose COVID-19 misinformation, of which there are 1000s, on ‘Get the Facts’. It also restricts hazardous misinformation about the virus and has detached posts by the USA’s President under this policy.
Facebook is speaking about the anti-vaxxers of the year, 2014 and 2015 and not the anti-vaxxers of this year.
There was also an article which was published in 2019 that found that most of the anti-vaccine misinformation which was being pushed in ads on Facebook, were coming from 2 groups, which are the one that is led by Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and Stop Mandatory Vaccination.
