Facebook - Updating Its Control over the COVID-19 Vaccine Narrative

Facebook, the self-proclaimed Guardian of the Truth has, once again, flexed its "corporate muscle" on its users when it comes to the vaccine narrative and its version of vaccine veracity.  Here is the most recent update on Facebook's views on censoring claims made by its users regarding COVID-19 vaccines, critical information given that Facebook is the world's foremost authority on vaccinations and pandemics:

 

"Removing More False Claims About COVID-19 and Vaccines

 

Today, we are expanding our efforts to remove false claims on Facebook and Instagram about COVID-19, COVID-19 vaccines and vaccines in general during the pandemic. Since December, we’ve removed false claims about COVID-19 vaccines that have been debunked by public health experts. Today, following consultations with leading health organizations, including the World Health Organization (WHO), we are expanding the list of false claims we will remove to include additional debunked claims about the coronavirus and vaccines. This includes claims such as: 

 

1.) COVID-19 is man-made or manufactured

 

2.) Vaccines are not effective at preventing the disease they are meant to protect against

 

3.) It’s safer to get the disease than to get the vaccine

 

4.) Vaccines are toxic, dangerous or cause autism 

 

…These new policies will help us continue to take aggressive action against misinformation about COVID-19 and vaccines.

 

We will begin enforcing this policy immediately, with a particular focus on Pages, groups and accounts that violate these rules, and we’ll continue to expand our enforcement over the coming weeks. Groups, Pages and accounts on Facebook and Instagram that repeatedly share these debunked claims may be removed altogether. We are also requiring some admins for groups with admins or members who have violated our COVID-19 policies to temporarily approve all posts within their group. Claims about COVID-19 or vaccines that do not violate these policies will still be eligible for review by our third-party fact-checkers, and if they are rated false, they will be labeled and demoted.  

 

Finally, we are continuing to improve Search results on our platforms. When people search for vaccine or COVID-19 related content on Facebook, we promote relevant, authoritative results and provide third-party resources to connect people to expert information about vaccines. On Instagram, in addition to surfacing authoritative results in Search, in the coming weeks we’re making it harder to find accounts in search that discourage people from getting vaccinated."

  

Here is a screen capture showing the full list of Facebook's "COVID-19 vaccine no no's":

 

Facebook is quite proud of "running the largest worldwide campaign to promote authoritative information about COVID-19 vaccines" as shown here:

 

You will notice that this missive was written by Kang-Xing Jin, Facebook's Head of Health.  Here is his CV from his LinkedIn page:

 

I may be mistaken but I don't see much training or work experience in vaccinology or epidemiology, do you?  In fact, nearly all of his work experience has been at Facebook where he has worked his way up from a software engineer to his current position as Head of Health.

 

Given that Instagram is a wholly-owned subsidiary of Facebook, this recent news is of interest to those of us who object to Facebook's heavy-handed approach to the COVID-19 narrative:

 

This is what you get when you attempt to link to Kennedy's Instagram page:

  

According to a spokesperson for Facebook, "We removed this account for repeatedly sharing debunked claims about the coronavirus or vaccines...".

 

Here's what NPR had to say about the story:

 

"In the past year, Kennedy's beliefs about vaccines have intersected with the COVID-19 pandemic. He has told his followers not to trust "mainstream media, government health officials" and doctors who say the coronavirus vaccines are safe, recently highlighting a rare and tragic case in which a woman died hours after receiving the vaccine."

 

Apparently, NPR's researchers (and Facebook's as well) have missed this:

....and this:

 

....and this:

 

Sadly, a very significant proportion of the human race has allowed a handful of billionaires to control the world by putting the responsibility for the COVID-19 narrative in their hands and hands of their less-than-well-trained non-medical personnel who love to censor anyone who doesn't subscribe to the "truth" as their employer sees it.  Facebook has taken advantage of its users and their seeming inability to research the real story behind the COVID-19 pandemic and the unprecedented vaccines being used to inoculate us.