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Title: As anti-vax movement gets weirder - and dumber - Facebook announces crackdown
Source:
ArsTechnica
URL Source: https://arstechnica.com/science/201 ... -facebook-announces-crackdown/
Published: Mar 11, 2019
Author: Beth Mole
Post Date: 2019-03-11 10:02:49 by Tooconservative
Keywords: None
Views: 12791
Comments: 59
Facing scrutiny for allowing anti-vaccine lies and conspiracy theories to fester and spread on its pages, Facebook announced Thursday a set of steps it will take to rid its platform of misinformation—which has seemingly become even weirder and more idiotic recently. The move follows a letter sent to Facebook from Rep. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) last month, raising concerns that anti-vaccine information spread on the site could corrupt anxious parents’ views of safe, life-saving immunizations. Schiff also questioned the popular social media site about accepting payments from anti-vaccine advertisements. Facebook wasn’t the only media giant questioned; Schiff sent a similar letter to Google, too, raising concerns about content on YouTube specifically. Still, Facebook has taken center stage on the issue. In a Senate hearing last week exploring the rise of misinformation about vaccines (titled Vaccines Save Lives), a now-high-profile Ohio teenager made a point to single out the site. Ethan Lindenberger, the 18-year-old who famously got himself vaccinated despite his mother being fiercely against vaccines, said his mother’s false beliefs came from one place: Facebook. When a Senator asked Lindenberger where he got his information on vaccines, Lindenberger, chuckling, responded, “not Facebook.” “From CDC, World Health Organization, scientific journals… accredited sources,” he added. With the steps outlined Thursday, Facebook aims to inject some of those credible sources into its platform. Broadly, the social media giant will try to boost the profile of accurate, authoritative information on vaccines while thwarting the spread of pre-identified vaccine misinformation in news feeds and recommendations. It will also boot ads with that misinformation. To identify just what is false and what is credible, Facebook said it will rely on the World Health Organization and the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to pick out what it referred to as “vaccine hoaxes.“ “If these vaccine hoaxes appear on Facebook, we will take action against them,” the company said. It offered an example of planned actions, saying that “if a group or Page admin posts this vaccine misinformation, we will exclude the entire group or Page from recommendations, reduce these groups and Pages' distribution in News Feed and Search, and reject ads with this misinformation.” The success of the stated plan may hinge on whether the World Health Organization and Centers for Disease Control and Prevention can keep up with the ever-shifting conspiracy theories and bunkum related to vaccines. The noxious yet established falsehood that vaccines or vaccine components can cause autism, for instance, has been widely debunked. But others are burgeoning and may be hard to head off. For instance, there's the myth that vaccines are cash cows for Big Pharma (they make relatively little revenue), which is secretly behind pro-vaccine messages (they’re not; public health experts are). More recently, a theme that has been volleyed by anti-vaccine advocates is that getting measles is somehow good for you and could prevent cancer. Both are completely wrong. Measles is a serious illness that can cause severe disabilities in children, including deafness and intellectual disabilities. It is also deadly. An ongoing measles outbreak in Madagascar, for instance, has killed nearly 1,000 children. Being dead isn’t good for you. The idea circulating that measles can prevent cancer may stem from a misunderstanding of studies that used bioengineered versions of the virus to deliver cancer therapies. But these are not the viruses that circulate during outbreaks. There is no credible evidence to suggest that previous measles infections will protect a person from cancers. Last, in an even more idiotic turn, a Texas lawmaker argued that he was not worried about measles because, in the US, we have “antibiotics and that kind of stuff.” Antibiotics only treat bacterial infections. Measles is caused by a virus. Moreover, there is no specific antiviral treatment for measles. Due in large part to this kind of misinformation spreading, the US is now battling six separate measles outbreaks and has confirmed cases in 11 states so far this year. Amid an outbreak in Washington state, more than 800 potentially exposed children have been barred from schools.
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#13. To: Tooconservative (#0)
Facebook is a danger and utterly ridiculous excepting to the kid that owns it.
"The kid" supposedly "owns it; But you can bet the house that he's partnered with (and is minotitah-"owner" with elements of the NWO-Elites. No way were the world's globalists going to allow ONE man to control such a great propaganda weapon. They MUST control the narrative. FB isn't the only danger; Twitter and YouTube along with FB are ALL coincidentally and simultaneous censoring and shutting down opposition to the policies enforced and advocated by Globalist Establishment's cabal of population-cullers. (Yes, like the Time-Bombs call, "VACCINATION.")
I'll add Google to that. There's a lot of taxpayer money going to all of the above, FBI, CIA, DHS, foundations, think tanks, etc, and big stupid government controlling the dumbed down public school, vaccinated & indoctrinated sheeple voters via media disinfo talking heads propaganda & partisan fake "alternative media", . After all that, it's tough for the dazed & confused sheeple to even find the polling place and chose between the two preselected D&R party candidates. Little hope that they'll write in someone that they actually like, who might do a good job, or vote "third" (really second) party.
Right -- of course g00gle should have been included in this pack of Deep State stooge ops. It is essential that the Globalist One World Gummint puppetmeisters keep the sheeple in the dark. ZERO light preferably. From K-College, childrens' critical thinking skills are quashed. The elites MUST maintain control and the narrative. Maintaining ignorance is of course the best way to acheive this (besides the outright current criminalization of mere opinion and gaslighting strategy we see today. What we are now witnessing is institutional violations of the 1A (which is in dire jeopardy of losing.) The PTB policies and agenda are specifically about blatant misdirection or elimination of the public's right and ability to deeply scrutinize and investigate any given "Official Report" or version of "truth." There's a lot of taxpayer money going to all of the above, FBI, CIA, DHS, foundations, think tanks, etc, and big stupid government controlling the dumbed down public school, vaccinated & indoctrinated sheeple voters via media disinfo talking heads propaganda & partisan fake "alternative media." Well deconstructed; Hear ya on every single word and equation and plan you've just connected. Now that many are started to be awakened via the above media, the elites are panicking. They ordered FB, G00gle, YT and Twitter to start taking down what's been exposed and its vloggers and "Truther" sites ghost-banned or suspended for bogus "Violations of Terms of Us". Once we see talk of criminalizing free speech and truth, they and we know the jig is up. The One World Gummint globalists (or Luciferian elites) cannot afford to have ANY of the truths go viral. Especially at YouTube are many well-informed communicators who have been extremely effective at exposing the entire "Beast System", their indoctrination and programming -- along with the elites imminent plans to criminalize the Truth. So again -- YT is purging the site like crazy. And YT, FB, Twitter ALL grooming mobs of programmed TROLLS and paid shill to counter the truth. We must access this stuff before it's removed totally. And again to repeat -- a number of vids produced by vloggers who reported on the whole VAX theater by Hollywood and TV...ARE NOW PURGED. IF you notice, the PTB biggest "NO-GO!" taboo subjects at YT etal are: 1) 9/11 These are why they had to eliminate and neuter Alex Jones.
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#16. To: IbJensen (#13)
Facebook is a danger and utterly ridiculous excepting to the kid that owns it.
#19. To: Liberator (#16)
FB isn't the only danger; Twitter and YouTube along with FB are ALL coincidentally and simultaneous censoring and shutting down opposition
#20. To: hondo68, Deckard, Pinguinite, IbJensen, nolu chan (#19)
2) 0bama's BC
3) PizzaGate
4) The Vegas Slaughter
5) Newtown
Replies to Comment # 20.
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