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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: 15388
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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Begin Trace Mode for Comment # 37.
#1. To: All, Deckard (#0)
.... 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. Interesting. HA! FB is calling their defense of lies and solution to the truth-exposed to be their version of the cyber-gulag -- censorship and banishment opinions and facts they dislike? Provable "TRUTH" can now either routinely referred to as either "weird," "idiotic, "misinformation," "CT" and "Fake News" as excuse for censorship, slander, "ghosting," and banishments from the Towne Square. FB, Twitter, G00gle, and YouTube are obviously in cahoots with the same people are are trying to (ironically) disinfor, misinform AND lie to the rest of us. Nope, NOT gonna work.
The implicit but undeniable message in their proposed censorship is that Freedom of Speech has run its course and should no longer be considered a Constitutionally Protected Right. It is instead relegated to a bygone era because more harm is done to society when it is permitted in the digital age. According to Facebook, people are officially too stupid to hear alternative viewpoints.
Yup. The anti-free speech/censorship message from FB, Twitter, YouTube, etal is indeed implicit and undeniable. They obviously gotten a wink and clear blessing from Almighty Gummint and congress to ignore the US Constitution and permission to quash dissent of "The Official Fairy Tale." According to Facebook, people are officially too stupid to hear alternative viewpoints. Well, that too. The additional rest of the story: Truth-Exposed indicts and convicts the Elites in High Places as criminals and gangstas plotting murder and mayhem against the "peons."
#49. To: Liberator (#37)
The anti-free speech/censorship message from FB, Twitter, YouTube, etal is indeed implicit and undeniable. They obviously gotten a wink and clear blessing from Almighty Gummint and congress to ignore the US Constitution and permission to quash dissent of "The Official Fairy Tale If you were the dumb ass on Facebook telling this woman not go buy tamiflu. She should be able to sue you right?
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#9. To: Tooconservative, Pinguinite, Deckard (#1)
(Edited)
Facing scrutiny for allowing anti-vaccine lies and conspiracy theories to fester and spread on its pages,...
#27. To: Liberator (#9)
Interesting. HA! FB is calling their defense of lies and solution to the truth-exposed to be their version of the cyber-gulag -- censorship and banishment opinions and facts they dislike?
#37. To: Pinguinite (#27)
The implicit but undeniable message in their proposed censorship is that Freedom of Speech has run its course and should no longer be considered a Constitutionally Protected Right.
Replies to Comment # 37. Yup.
End Trace Mode for Comment # 37.
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