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Facebook wants to ban all ads on its pages that are worded in such a way that they can prevent people from getting vaccinated. “We don’t want these ads on our platform,” he said in a group blog post on Tuesday. The corona pandemic shows how important “preventive behavior” is to protect health, the company stressed.
However, Facebook wants to continue to allow ads that criticize certain measures taken by governments in relation to vaccines. Coronavirus vaccine research is currently under great pressure around the world.
Operators of large online networks are repeatedly accused of allowing anti-vaccination activists to spread their messages widely. According to its own information, Facebook is now also planning a campaign in the US to publicize flu vaccines.
The new rules only apply to paid posts. With these, Facebook pages can also target specific people who don’t follow the page. Normal user contributions are not affected by the rule change. On Facebook, however, it is precisely these free posts that often help spread vaccine-critical content to special groups.
In particular, Facebook tries to counter false information about vaccines with information from fact-checkers. Contributions remain online but are provided with caveats, and in some cases their scope is restricted if fact-checkers have rebutted the content of a contribution.
Connection between conspiracy myths and vaccination skepticism
Recently, Facebook had also increasingly acted against the spread of conspiracy myths on its pages. A study published Wednesday shows that believing completely unfounded theories can significantly reduce willingness to vaccinate.
Surveys were conducted in the US, UK, Ireland, Spain, and Mexico for the research. According to the study published in the British journal “Royal Society Open Science”, most people reject conspiracy theories about the coronavirus, but “a considerable part” of the population takes these false claims at face value.
The study also showed a “clear connection” between belief in conspiracy myths and skepticism about vaccines, said Sander van der Linden, one of the authors. The researchers concluded that the more respondents generally willing to participate in future corona vaccines, the more they adhered to conspiracy theories.
The new rules for ads also apply to Facebook’s subsidiary Instagram, as a company spokeswoman confirmed to SPIEGEL.
