Facebook on Tuesday announced that it will no longer allow any advertising that discourages people from getting a vaccine as part of a series of policy changes targeting misinformation on the social media platform.
The company’s head of health, Kang-Xing Jin, and director of product management, Rob Leathern, wrote in a blog post on Tuesday that Facebook will now reject an ad if it “explicitly discourages someone from getting a vaccine.”
Previously, Facebook’s policy only concerned vaccine hoaxes that had been publicly identified by a global health organization.
“Today, we’re launching a new global policy that prohibits ads discouraging people from getting vaccinated,” they wrote. “We don’t want these ads on our platform.
“Our 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,” they continue. “We already don’t allow ads with vaccine hoaxes that have been publicly identified by leading global health organizations, such as the World Health Organization (WHO) and the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). Now, if an ad explicitly discourages someone from getting a vaccine, we’ll reject it. Enforcement will begin over the next few days.”
This decision follows several similar policy changes at the company. It announced earlier this week that it would ban Holocaust denial on its platform, and a prohibition on pages and groups related to the conspiracy theory known as QAnon, among other measures.
CNBC notes that Facebook will continue to allow ads that oppose government policies involving vaccines, including a vaccine for the coronavirus.
Theodore Bunker ✉
Theodore Bunker, a Newsmax writer, has more than a decade covering news, media, and politics.
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