Facebook will be banning advertisements that discourage vaccination from its platform.
“We’re launching a new global policy that prohibits ads discouraging people from getting vaccinated. We don’t want these ads on our platform,” Facebook announced in an official blog post.
“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,” it added.
The platform will still allow ads “that advocate for or against legislation or government policies around vaccines” including a Covid-19 vaccine. The policy related to anti-vaccination ads will be enforced over the next few weeks, Facebook said.
Facebook had already banned content related to vaccine hoaxes as a broader attempt to curb the spread of Covid-19 misinformation on its platform.
The social media giant is also working with public health organisations including WHO and UNICEF “on public health messaging campaigns to increase immunization rates.”
Flu info campaign
Apart from banning ads discouraging people from getting vaccinated, it will also be launching a new flu vaccine information campaign on Facebook along with new product features that will provide additional content on vaccines.
“We’ll also be including sharable flu vaccine reminders and resources from health authorities in News Feed and within the Covid-19 Information Center,” Facebook said.
Its public health campaign will begin in the United States this week and will be expanded to other countries in the coming weeks.