Facebook stated Wednesday vaccine “hesitancy” is declining within the United States and different international locations, and credit its efforts to filter out misinformation and promote authoritative data for serving to the pattern.
In releasing its quarterly transparency report, Facebook stated the newest information confirmed vaccine hesitancy is down by 50 p.c amongst US customers of the social community, with important declines in different international locations.
The information comes a month after a public spat between Facebook and the White House after President Joe Biden claimed Facebook was “killing people” by permitting vaccine misinformation to unfold.
Facebook stated it eliminated some 20 million items of content material, issuing warnings for tens of millions extra, and blocked 3,000 accounts for violating its insurance policies on COVID-19 misinformation, whereas on the identical time connecting customers with dependable sources of well being data.
“We are focused on outcomes, which we believe are the right way to evaluate the end result,” Facebook vp for integrity Guy Rosen instructed reporters.
“For example, for people in the US on Facebook, vaccine hesitancy has declined by 50 percent and we’ve similarly seen vaccine assessments rising globally.”
The information comes from a long-running survey of Facebook customers performed with Carnegie Mellon University and the University of Maryland.
“This is all movement in the right direction,” he stated.
Rosen famous that 18 million folks have used Facebook’s profile frames supporting vaccines.
“It’s most important for people to see their friends and family supporting vaccinations,” he stated.
Facebook stated its machine studying instruments proceed to make progress in filtering inappropriate content material akin to hate speech.
Rosen stated the prevalence of violating content material – which Facebook claims is the easiest way to measure its effectiveness in filtering – was simply 0.05 p.c within the second quarter of the 12 months.
That interprets to 5 items of inappropriate content material per 1,000 views, he famous.
“Prevalence is our primary metric… it matters because it captures not what we took down but what we missed and what was ultimately seen by people,” Rosen stated.
Facebook didn’t embrace information on the prevalence of COVID-19 misinformation, saying this can be a fast-evolving panorama.
“We now have more than 65 specific claims that we removed from our platforms around COVID-19 and vaccines because they are false and may contribute to the risk of imminent physical harm during the pandemic,” stated vp for content material coverage Monika Bickert.
“We’re continuing to add to this list as new trends emerge. For instance, in the past month, we added to our list claims that COVID-19 vaccines cause Alzheimer’s, that the vaccines cause magnetism and that being around vaccinated people could cause secondary side effects to others.”
