Facebook announced Thursday its first policy to combat misinformation about vaccines, following in the footsteps of Pinterest and YouTube. The social network is adopting an approach similar to the one it uses to tackle fake news: The company will not remove incorrect content, but it will aim to reduce the reach of that content by making it harder to find. “Leading global health organizations, such as the World Health Organization and the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, have publicly identified verifiable vaccine hoaxes,” Monika Bickert, Facebook’s vice president for global policy management, said in a statement Thursday. “If these vaccine hoaxes appear on Facebook, we will take action against them.”Anti-vaccination groups have flourished on Facebook, partly because of the site’s search results and “suggested groups” feature.

Source: New York Times March 08, 2019 01:07 UTC