{"id":357,"date":"2020-10-14T14:39:29","date_gmt":"2020-10-14T14:39:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/thenextweb.com\/?p=1323388"},"modified":"2020-10-14T14:39:29","modified_gmt":"2020-10-14T14:39:29","slug":"facebook-is-finally-banning-anti-vax-ads-from-its-platform-and-instagram","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.londonchiropracter.com\/?p=357","title":{"rendered":"Facebook is finally banning anti-vax ads from its platform and Instagram"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<div><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/img-cdn.tnwcdn.com\/image\/tnw?filter_last=1&amp;fit=1280%2C640&amp;url=https%3A%2F%2Fcdn0.tnwcdn.com%2Fwp-content%2Fblogs.dir%2F1%2Ffiles%2F2020%2F08%2FUntitled-design-2020-08-11T182518.964.png&amp;signature=4c20dcbe0715a647a5130ca219a21528\" class=\"ff-og-image-inserted\"><\/div>\n<p>Anti-vaxxers must be steaming. In an effort to curb health misinformation amidst the coronavirus pandemic, Facebook has revealed it\u2019ll start purging ads that discourage vaccines and immunization on its platform and Instagram.<\/p>\n<p>As the Wall Street Journal <a href=\"https:\/\/www.wsj.com\/articles\/facebook-to-ban-ads-discouraging-vaccines-11602612841\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener noreferrer\">notes<\/a>, this is hardly the first time the Zuckerberg empire has promised to crack down on <a href=\"https:\/\/www.wsj.com\/articles\/facebook-cracks-down-on-vaccine-misinformation-11551989347\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener noreferrer\">vaccine misinformation<\/a>. Last year, the company made a similar pledge, but later acknowledged it had failed to remove paid ads from a prominent anti-vax group that suggested evil doctors are conspiring to hide evidence of alleged harm to children.<\/p>\n<p>\u201c<span>Today, we\u2019re launching a new global policy that prohibits ads discouraging people from getting vaccinated,\u201d Facebook said in a <a href=\"https:\/\/about.fb.com\/news\/2020\/10\/supporting-public-health-experts-vaccine-efforts\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener noreferrer\">statement<\/a>. \u201cOur goal is to help messages about the safety and efficacy of vaccines reach a broad group of people, while prohibiting ads with misinformation that could harm public health efforts.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<p>The move comes amidst increased criticism from health professionals bemoaning Facebook for undermining the importance of immunization by giving platform to anti-vax groups.<\/p>\n<p>That said, the company will still allow ads that advocate for or against legislation concerning vaccines, including one for COVID-19.<\/p>\n<p>\u201c<span>We regularly refine our approach around ads that are about social issues to capture debates and discussions around sensitive topics happening on Facebook,\u201d the company added. \u201cWhile we may narrow enforcement in some areas, we may expand it in others.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<p>The campaign presents Facebook\u2018s latest efforts to discourage the spread of misinformation on its platform and give more exposure to trusted sources like the World Health Orgnaization (which has been guilty of disseminating <a href=\"https:\/\/edition.cnn.com\/2020\/03\/30\/world\/coronavirus-who-masks-recommendation-trnd\/index.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener noreferrer\">some pretty bad advice<\/a>, too) and UNICEF.<\/p>\n<p>Facebook isn\u2019t stopping at anti-vax content, though. Just last week, the company announced it\u2019ll begin <a href=\"https:\/\/thenextweb.com\/facebook\/2020\/10\/06\/facebook-and-instagram-just-banned-all-qanon-accounts-even-if-they-contain-no-violent-content\/\">banning pro-QAnon<\/a> accounts from its platform \u201ceven if they contain no violent content.\u201d Unlike the anti-vax ban, though, the restriction applied solely to pages and accounts, rather than individual posts.<\/p>\n<p class=\"post-article-read-next\"> <b>Read next:<\/b> <a class=\"gtm-article-read-next\" data-event-category=\"Article\" data-event-action=\"Next post\" data-event-label data-event-non-interaction=\"true\" href=\"https:\/\/thenextweb.com\/hardfork\/2020\/10\/14\/ny-watchdog-attacks-twitter-over-jarringly-easy-bitcoin-scam-hack\/\"> NY watchdog attacks Twitter over &#8216;jarringly easy&#8217; Bitcoin scam hack <\/a>\n<\/p>\n<p> <a href=\"https:\/\/thenextweb.com\/apps\/2020\/10\/14\/facebook-bans-anti-vax-ads\/\">Source<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Anti-vaxxers must be steaming. In an effort to curb health misinformation amidst the coronavirus pandemic, Facebook has revealed it\u2019ll start purging ads that discourage vaccines and immunization on its platform and Instagram&#8230;.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":358,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.londonchiropracter.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/357"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.londonchiropracter.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.londonchiropracter.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.londonchiropracter.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.londonchiropracter.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=357"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.londonchiropracter.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/357\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.londonchiropracter.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/358"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.londonchiropracter.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=357"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.londonchiropracter.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=357"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.londonchiropracter.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=357"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}