Following news that more than one-in-three people would refuse a coronavirus vaccine, governments such as that in Australia want tech companies such as Facebook to share what they’re doing to suppress vaccine skeptic content and other forms of “misinformation.”
Facebook has recently shared a submission it sent to the Australian Select Committee on Foreign Interference to highlight how it was extending its efforts to curb “misinformation” on its platform.
The Big Tech social media giant has also addressed the issues it faces when it comes to free speech and how it has other priorities than the virtue of freedom of expression.
“Since the very beginning of the crisis, we have been displaying on Facebook and Instagram prompts to direct users to official sources of information, including from the Australian government and the World Health Organization (WHO),” wrote Facebook.
The company has aggressively pushed the official COVID-19 narrative to its users by sharing reams of information about the pandemic on the news feeds of users.
It is worth noting that it always shared WHO and CDC-approved information and has actively suppressed content that contradicts those institutions.
On top of it all, Facebook drove its users to its official Coronavirus Information Center to keep them posted with official information and directing them to WHO or government websites. Moreover, it was also showing messages specifically about the “misinformation” surrounding the pandemic to users that have liked, shared, reacted, or commented on harmful content regarding COVID-19 to correct the user’s thoughts and comments.
“These messages will connect people to COVID-19 myths debunked by the WHO, including ones we’ve removed from our platform for leading to imminent physical harm,” Facebook wrote.
What’s more, Facebook is also going to introduce a new notification feature that will give more information about any COVID-19 related link before they share them.
The social media platform said that it was trying to curtail vaccine skeptic content from the platform due to concerns with COVID-19. As a result, a huge number of vaccine skeptic pages and groups have been removed from the recommendation section on Facebook. The company has gone to the lengths of even rejecting vaccine skeptic ads.
