Facebook is to begin removing false claims about Covid vaccines, the company has announced, as the UK prepares to roll out the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine. It is the strongest move yet by Facebook to prevent its platform from being used to promote anti-vaccination rhetoric. The Pfizer/BioNTech Covid jab is an mRNA Continue Reading
Vaccines and immunisation
Tech giants join with governments to fight Covid misinformation | Technology
Facebook, Twitter and Google are working with a coalition of governments including the UK and Canada to fight misinformation and conspiracy theories around Covid vaccinations. Formed by the British fact-checking charity Full Fact, the new working group will aim to set cross-platform standards for tackling misinformation – as well as Continue Reading
Social media firms must face sanction for ‘anti-vax content’, demands Labour | World news- Tempemail
Social media companies that fail to act to “stamp out dangerous anti-vaccine content” should be subject to financial and criminal penalties, Labour has demanded. As hopes rise that a vaccine against coronavirus could be ready within weeks, analysis by Labour has revealed that dedicated online groups with hundreds of thousands Continue Reading
Facebook to ban ads discouraging vaccination | Technology- Tempemail
Facebook will ban ads that discourage people from getting vaccinated, the social media company announced Tuesday, as it launches a new public health campaign aimed at spreading flu vaccine information. The changes are a departure from Facebook’s previous policy, which prohibited ads with vaccine misinformation but allowed ads expressing opposition Continue Reading
The QAnon conspiracy | World news- Tempemail
QAnon is a wide-ranging and baseless internet conspiracy theory that has been on the fringes of rightwing internet communities for years, but its visibility has exploded in recent months amid the social unrest and uncertainty of the coronavirus pandemic. QAnon has its roots in previously established conspiracy theories, some relatively Continue Reading
Engagement with anti-vaccine Facebook posts trebles in one month | Media- Tempemail
Engagement with anti-vaccine posts on a sample of UK Facebook pages trebled between July and August, analysis by the Guardian has found, triggering calls for a major new push to tackle conspiracy theories. Interactions on posts expressing scepticism or hostility towards vaccines on six UK Facebook pages increased from 12,000 Continue Reading
Nearly one in six Britons would refuse Covid-19 vaccine – survey | Media- Tempemail
Nearly one in six Britons will refuse a coronavirus vaccine if and when one becomes available, and a similar number are unsure whether they will get one, according to a survey. The findings come amid a significant rise in anti-vaccination sentiment on social media, and represent a threat to efforts Continue Reading
UK vaccine trial volunteer says she is ‘doing fine’ after online death rumours | World news- Tempemail
One of the first people to be injected as part of UK human trials for a coronavirus vaccine has said she is “doing fine”, after a fake article about her death was circulated on social media. The article claims that microbiologist Dr Elisa Granato, who took part in the trial Continue Reading