There has been NEWS and, of course, speculations ongoing about the shipment of COVID-19 vaccines. In a recent post, Facebook has announced it will be intensifying its efforts to remove/block any misinformation on COVID-19 vaccines.
According to Facebook’s report, Facebook will remove any posts/comments with misleading information. False claims like:
COVID-19 vaccines have any ingredient that is not on the official vaccine ingredient list
• Any conspiracy theories on COVID-19 vaccines
• Baseless claims about possible risks/hazards
Commenting on the projected hazard to come in the long-term alongside the COVID-19 pandemic, US infectious-disease expert Dr. Anthony Fauci forewarned of a long battle against the COVID-19 pandemic in America. According to him, the surge in anti-science bias will see many people disregarding the vaccine in the future.
Sadly, Facebook has played a critical role in the distribution of fake claims about COVID-19. Sometime in August, Avaaz, a human rights group, shared a report that shows Facebook aided the spread of false health claims.
The group provided some Facebook pages as evidence to support their report; these pages had about 3.8 billion views in the first five months of 2020 on misleading health claims. With the influence these pages have on people, Facebook needs to take drastic measures to curb these false claims.
To tackle these claims and provide viable solutions, Facebook states that it will promptly upgrade its approach to block and bring down false claims. They went thus:
“We will also continue to help people stay informed about these vaccines by promoting authoritative sources of information through our COVID-19 Information Center.”
Facebook’s effort to block false claims will play a crucial role in exploiting the vaccine and gradually getting life back to normal. Also, the ongoing attempt by Facebook will protect the effort of the public health sector.