Facebook under pressure to halt rise of anti-vaccination groups

Facebook has been using the gullible and often violent anti-vacc community to recognize and recruit Deep State nutters...

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Editor’s note:  Facebook and Google have long given a free pass to anti-vacc and other communities, including every hate group imaginable with the exception of those who attack Israel’s war crimes…

There is a reason for this:  Gullible “influencers” are the heart of Trump’s Deep State.

With respect to our “home grown” anti-vaxxer, Kevin, there is absolutely nothing but fake science supporting anti-vaxx.

Assuming that every pediatrician in the US is part of a criminal conspiracy is “over the top.
So is the kind of stories out there, that polio is no worse than the common cold and that tetanus or even rabies are normal childhood diseases, just like measles, which, next to malaria, was the biggest killer worldwide.



Some of us worked in vaccination programs and watched childhood mortality numbers plummet across the world.

As a parent, I ran into these issues in the 1970’s, long before Wakefield’s very very odd and fake report on autism.  The anti crowd still make up stories about mercury for instance, something, like all of the anti-vacc crap, that can be disproven in a second.

Simply put, an unvaccinated child is a ticking time bomb, a risk to new borns, a pariah in school, a potential killer.  Young children, too young for vaccinations, are being crippled and killed by parents of loving but gullible parents who believe wild crap on the internet before their own doctors. 

Just watch the comment board as the nutters come out, spewing hate and dangerous lies.  Facebook has loved the cash but also, anti-vacc types have been recognized “influencers,” gullible, potentially violent, abusive, perfect Trump supporters and have been used as such.  Please comment, admit to being a dupe of the Deep State…G

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Facebook is under pressure to stem the rise of anti-vaccination groups spreading false information about the dangers of life-saving vaccines while peddling unfounded alternative treatments such as high doses of vitamin C.

The groups are large and sophisticated. Stop Mandatory Vaccination has more than 150,000 approved members. Vitamin C Against Vaccine Damage claims that large doses of the vitamin can “heal” people from vaccine damage, even though vaccines are safe.

Health experts are calling on Facebook to do more to counter these echo chambers. Dr Wendy Sue Swanson, spokeswoman of the American Academy of Pediatrics, said: “Facebook should prioritise dealing with the threat to human health when falsehoods and misinformation are shared. This isn’t just self-harm, it’s community harm.”

Swanson recently met with Facebook strategists and raised her concerns. “Parents deserve the truth. If they are being served up something that is not true it will likely increase their levels of anxiety and fear and potentially change their uptake of vaccines, which is dangerous,” she said.

Fiona O’Leary, an autism activist and campaigner against pseudo-science, called on Facebook to block anti-vaccine groups. “If they won’t shut down closed groups I’d like to see a Facebook watchdog that will remove misinformation causing harm to children,” she said.

Read more on UK Guardian  and…

How Facebook and YouTube help spread anti-vaxxer propaganda

Companies have acknowledged the problem and are taking modest steps to discourage misinformation

Facebook’s autofill suggestions for “vacci” steers users toward anti-vaccine misinformation.
Facebook’s autofill suggestions for ‘vacci’ steers users toward anti-vaccine misinformation. Photograph: Facebook

In 2015, Mark Zuckerberg weighed in on an unusually fraught issue with an uncommonly blunt statement: “Vaccination is an important and timely topic,” he wrote in a Facebook post about the book On Immunity by Eula Biss. “The science is completely clear: vaccinations work and are important for the health of everyone in our community.”

But when members of Facebook’s “community” seek information about vaccines on Facebook itself, they may be steered toward unscientific, anti-vaccination propaganda. On YouTube, a rival social media platform owned by Google, users seeking information about vaccines are similarly nudged toward anti-vaccination misinformation, much of it designed to frighten parents, even as a measles outbreak rages in the Pacific north-west.

The Guardian found that Facebook search results for groups and pages with information about vaccines were dominated by anti-vaccination propaganda, and that YouTube’s recommendation algorithm steers viewers from fact-based medical information toward anti-vaccine misinformation.

Facebook accepts advertising from anti-vaccination groups, boosting the performance of misinformation.
Facebook accepts advertising from anti-vaccination groups, boosting the performance of misinformation. Photograph: Facebook

These findings come amid global concern over vaccine hesitancy, which the World Health Organization (WHO) named as one of its top 10 threats to global health in 2019. And they raise questions about the efficacy of Facebook and YouTube’s efforts to clamp down on harmful misinformation.

read more on  UK Guardian and

Half of new parents shown anti-vaccine misinformation on social media – report

Charity calls for tech firms to address spread of misleading information pushed by anti-vaxxers

Vaccine in hand
Only 83% of teenage girls received the human papillomavirus (HPV) vaccine in 2016-17. Photograph: Charles Rex Arbogast/AP

Half of all parents with small children have been exposed to misinformation about vaccines on social media, according to a new report that finds the most common reason not to vaccinate is the fear of side-effects.

“We need to counteract health misinformation online and via social media,” said Shirley Cramer, the chief executive of the Royal Society for Public Health (RSPH), which published the report.

“We call on the social media giants and the platforms to look at what they could do around this because it is a breeding ground for misleading information and negative messaging. There could be some really negative and dangerous consequences. They need to take some responsibility.”

“Anti-vaxx” groups target the parents of new babies via social media, posting stories claiming babies have died or been harmed by vaccination. A US group called Stop Mandatory Vaccination, run by Larry Cook, was censured by the UK’s advertising watchdog in November over a paid-for Facebook post, after a complaint by the mother of a young baby in the UK.

read more at UK Guardian

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17 COMMENTS

  1. Over $4 Billion Paid for Vaccine Injuries and Deaths – Federal vaccine damage court awards since 1989 on behalf of those who were injured or died after getting federally recommended childhood vaccines have now topped $4 billion, with claims dramatically increasing in recent years as people learn about vaccine dangers. About $1 billion of that total has been awarded to vaccine-injured victims in just the last four years. Vaccines do not work as advertised. What works is 200 years of pseudo-science and indoctrination that make most people, including doctors, BELIEVE they do. Click here for details: goo(dot)gl/yxK798

  2. 157 Research Papers Supporting the Vaccine/Autism Link – Media reports have claimed that there is no scientific evidence supporting the link between vaccines and autism. Here we provide for the reader research that demonstrates links between vaccines and autism, and the mechanisms by which vaccines can cause autism. Click goo(dot)gl/pxpH2V

  3. There are so many online websites showing the ill effects and deaths caused by vaccines. If these sites are publishing falsehood, their publishers would have long ago been sued till bankruptcy by the powerful and moneyed interests.
    Mr Duff, you have been accused of publishing falsehood and being a “Jewish Disinformation Agent” by the following website:
    https://christconquers.wordpress.com/2012/11/11/gordon-duff-admits-that-he-is-indeed-a-jewish-disinformation-agent/
    The publication claims that in your own voice in the recording of the interview with radio host Mike Harris on October 12, 2012, that you have said:
    “… About 30% of what’s on VT is patently false. About 40% of what I write is (at least) purposely, partially false because if I didn’t write false information – I wouldn’t be alive.”
    If this claim is untrue, here is your chance to sue the publisher for libel and damage to your reputation. Please keep us posted on the proceedings.

    • Your information is fake. Your IP address exposes you as a paid troll. Score one for the war on anti-Vacc fakes.

  4. It’s sad to see that VT is also being infiltrated by big pharma. I had high hopes but VT is not the best reference on this subject (or any health related) unless you are looking for a repeat of big pharma talking points ….

    • More zio idiocy. Get an education. Find a local school, attend, get educated, before you end up with your photo on a milk carton.

    • I am glad (and surprised) to have comments from two of whom I admire the most from the VT team.

      Just for your reference, I don’t like to brag about it, but my PhD in Electrical Engineering here as U. of Saskatchewan taught me some basic research skills. An I can say honestly coming and reading VT articles of you both opened my eyes well beyond my particular area of expertise, which I am grateful for.

      I respect personal opinions, but then it’s best to state them clearly as yours without generalizing or despising other’s people opinions, especially when there is lot of evidence out there.

      You may look at the work of Dr. Suzanne Humphries for instance if you dare to (at least to get informed on other people’s expert opinion).

      http://www.greenmedinfo.com/blog/indias-polio-free-status-cruel-joke

  5. A nice piece of pchy ops there Gordy, making it look like anyone who replies in the neg to your opinion is a tin hat. Most people out there have no trust in Big pharma or the medical profession that eat at there trough. The amount of people that are dead because of those two orgonisations is in the millions, mullty millions!WHO killed millions upon millions of Africans with there vaccines with AIDS added to it and millions of others around the world. The people of the world are not trusting big pharma and there vaccines with good reason! They DO KILL PEOPLE. Looking at your approuch i can see whose barrow you are pushing. Cheers John.

    • More “big pharma” conspiracy theories. More Zio Fox News/Alex Jones crap, using dangerous pseudo science to recruit idiots as “influencers” on behalf of the Deep State.

    • You aren’t always this stupid, Harry. (really Steve)
      Find some science to support your beliefs.

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