Facebook bans false claims about COVID-19 vaccines

Facebook bans false claims about COVID-19 vaccines Facebook Inc on Thursday said it would remove false claims about COVID-19 vaccines that have been debunked by public health experts, following a similar announcement by Alphabet Inc's YouTube in October. Katie Paul, Elizabeth Culliford U.S.

PALO ALTO, Calif. (Reuters) - Facebook Inc on Thursday said it would remove false claims about COVID-19 vaccines that have been debunked by public health experts, following a similar announcement by Alphabet Inc’s YouTube in October.

The move expands Facebook’s current rules against falsehoods and conspiracy theories about the pandemic. The social media company says it takes down coronavirus misinformation that poses a risk of “imminent” harm, while labeling and reducing distribution of other false claims that fail to reach that threshold.

Facebook said in a blog post that the global policy change came in response to news that COVID-19 vaccines will soon be rolling out around the world....

Misinformation about the new coronavirus vaccines has proliferated on social media during the pandemic, including through viral anti-vaccine posts shared across multiple platforms and by different ideological groups, according to researchers.

A November report here by the nonprofit First Draft found that 84 percent of interactions generated by vaccine-related conspiracy content it studied came from Facebook pages and Facebook-owned Instagram.

Facebook said it would remove debunked COVID-19 vaccine conspiracies, such as that the vaccines’ safety is being tested on specific populations without their consent, and misinformation about the vaccines. ...