By Marisol Bo-oc | 10:29 PM December 04, 2020
Facebook announced Thursday it would start to remove false claims about Covid vaccines, the company has announced, as the UK prepares to roll out the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine.
It is the strongest move yet by Facebook to prevent its platform from being used to promote anti-vaccination rhetoric.
“Given the recent news that COVID-19 vaccines will soon be rolling out around the world, over the coming weeks we will start removing false claims about these vaccines that have been debunked by public health experts on Facebook and Instagram,” the social platform said in a statement. “This is another way that we are applying our policy to remove misinformation about the virus that could lead to imminent physical harm.”
Candidates by Pfizer/BioNTech and Moderna are pending approval in the US and Europe with 95% and 94.1% efficiency, respectively.
Posts and advertisements, including false claims about the safety, efficacy, ingredients or side effects of the vaccines, will be removed.
“For example, we will remove false claims that COVID-19 vaccines contain microchips, or anything else that isn’t on the official vaccine ingredient list,” it said.
“We will also remove conspiracy theories about COVID-19 vaccines that we know today are false: like specific populations are being used without their consent to test the vaccine’s safet,” it added.
The company also announced it is set to invest $100 million in the news industry to support fact-checkers.