Despite promises to the contrary, Facebook lets anti-vax ads run while banning ads advocating for vaccines

Facebook promised to institute a stricter policy on anti-vaccination misinformation in ads back in February, a policy it expanded sitewide in March. That crackdown, however, appears to be penalizing some legitimate healthcare providers while letting some anti-vaccine conspiracies slide, even as the United States faces its largest outbreak of diseases preventable by vaccines in decades.

This month, the Idaho Department of Health and Welfare, the state’s official health department, bought 14 ads to promote a statewide program providing free pediatric vaccinations. Facebook removed all of them.

During the same time period, Children’s Health Defense, an anti-vaccine nonprofit founded and chaired by the nation’s most prominent vaccine conspiracy theorist, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., successfully placed more than 10 ads stoking unfounded fear about vaccines and other medical conspiracy theories. Some of the ads skirted around their intent, and some did not: One promised to reveal the truth about the “MMR Vaccine’s Poison Pill”—the commonplace vaccine against mumps, measles, and rubella. It reached between 10,000 and 50,000 people, and Facebook took in between $100 and $500 for the ad.

Ben Reilly wrote:

Facebook promised to institute a stricter policy on anti-vaccination misinformation in ads back in February, a policy it expanded sitewide in March. That crackdown, however, appears to be penalizing some legitimate healthcare providers while letting some anti-vaccine conspiracies slide, even as the United States faces its largest outbreak of diseases preventable by vaccines in decades.

This month, the Idaho Department of Health and Welfare, the state’s official health department, bought 14 ads to promote a statewide program providing free pediatric vaccinations. Facebook removed all of them.

During the same time period, Children’s Health Defense, an anti-vaccine nonprofit founded and chaired by the nation’s most prominent vaccine conspiracy theorist, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., successfully placed more than 10 ads stoking unfounded fear about vaccines and other medical conspiracy theories. Some of the ads skirted around their intent, and some did not: One promised to reveal the truth about the “MMR Vaccine’s Poison Pill”—the commonplace vaccine against mumps, measles, and rubella. It reached between 10,000 and 50,000 people, and Facebook took in between $100 and $500 for the ad.

https://www.thedailybeast.com/facebook-axed-pro-vaccine-ads-from-hospitals-and-health-orgs-let-anti-vaxxer-ads-slip-through

Seriously, this is a big no-no for any giant media company like Facebook. If you run ads from one side, you must run ads from the other.

I think in this case, anti-vax ads probably generate more traffic than pro-vax ads, simply because being pro-vaccination isn't a rebellious stance to take.

phildidge wrote:

Ben Reilly wrote:

https://www.thedailybeast.com/facebook-axed-pro-vaccine-ads-from-hospitals-and-health-orgs-let-anti-vaxxer-ads-slip-through

Seriously, this is a big no-no for any giant media company like Facebook. If you run ads from one side, you must run ads from the other.

I think in this case, anti-vax ads probably generate more traffic than pro-vax ads, simply because being pro-vaccination isn't a rebellious stance to take.

I thought you were against fake news?
If an add is based on a lie, why then promote this lie?
Nobody should run adds that are unscienitifc and formed from a view to place fear into people. That could litterally effect the well being of millions of children
A private company should never promote such inscientific views and only do so from the view point to debunk the litteral idiocy that is being used to scare people to not vaccinate

Are you seriously suggesting we should run adds to gay conversion therapy?
That is an add from the other side?

Ben Reilly wrote:To avoid a perception of bias, a media outlet must either run ads from (for example) gay conversion people and pro-gray groups, or avoid the topic of homosexuality in its advertising altogether.

To do otherwise can sometimes be the speech/advertising version of apartheid -- "your kind isn't welcome here" -- or simply an admission of bias, which media outlets are of course welcome to do.

We sort of do it here, in a way, but I've let everyone know it's my forum and I'm fine with being seen as biased against people who think baking soda cures cancer, for example.

The difference being, we're not Facebook, a private company that has become so ubiquitous that it's on the brink of deserving to be regulated like a utility.

Maddog wrote:Facebook put me in jail for posting a pic of fat chick who shit her britches.

They are hardly fair, or uniform in their enforcement of anything. I think they are mostly driven by people who report things, as they can't read everything posted.

I would delete my Facebook account if I gave a shit.      

Maddog wrote:Facebook put me in jail for posting a pic of fat chick who shit her britches.

They are hardly fair, or uniform in their enforcement of anything. I think they are mostly driven by people who report things, as they can't read everything posted.

I would delete my Facebook account if I gave a shit.