Facebook, a globally recognized social media platform revealed its plan to ban adverts placed by people or groups, to discourage vaccinations, while unpaid posts will still be allowed on the platform.
The social media giant said that, adverts that project false information about vaccinations, have been banned by the platform, and the latest move will extend the ban to paid adverts that tell people not to have jabs.
Kang-Xing Jin, Facebook’s Head of Health Initiatives said, ‘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.’
However, the global social media platform will give room for a political exception, and adverts that ‘advocate for or against legislation or government policies around vaccines’, including those for COVID-19, will still be allowed based on approval by the site.
In addition, Mr. Jin also unveiled that, Facebook will run information campaign from partners at the World Health Organization (WHO) and UNICEF to increase immunization rates through public health messaging campaigns.
The social network placed its policy change as part of the consistent re-evaluations of contents on the site.
He said, ‘We regularly refine our approach around ads that are about social issues to capture debates and discussions around sensitive topics happening on Facebook… Vaccines are no different. While we may narrow enforcement in some areas, we may expand it in others.’
Since the emergence of the coronavirus pandemic, the social media platform, has tightened its rules around COVID-related misinformation.
The platform also steers users away from health-related groups, emphasizing the importance for people get their information from right and authoritative sources.
It also disallows what it terms as ‘dangerous’ misinformation about the pandemic, and has taken out posts by US President Donald Trump as a result of the policy.
Peace Omenka
Photo Credit: Devex