Facebook Introduces New Notifications To Fight Against Vaccine Misinformation

These days with social media, it’s easy to spread misinformation at a click of a button. Sometimes people do it unknowingly, but sometimes people do it on purpose, but the fact of the matter is that we need to be more careful and maybe slightly distrustful of what we read online until we can do further digging of our own.

Sometimes this misinformation can be harmful, like posts regarding vaccines where there are some parents who do not believe it in, claiming that vaccines can cause autism in children. However, to stop the spread of this misinformation, Facebook has since debuted new popup notifications whenever users try to search for vaccine-related information on its platform.

When users search for such information, they will be told that if they want more reliable and accurate information, they should visit the websites of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, or if they live outside of the US, they can visit the World Health Organization’s website.

In an email sent to CNN, CDC spokeswoman Kristen Nordlund praised Facebook’s latest efforts. “We know that parents often turn to social media to access health information and connect with other parents, and it can be difficult to determine what is accurate and who the credible sources of information are.” This is not the first time that Facebook has attempted to curb misinformation in general, although these new popups seem to be targeted mostly at vaccine-related information.

Tyler Lee
Categories: General
Tags: Facebook, Health