Both Facebook and YouTube are cracking down on anti-vaccination content by making the controversial information harder to find.
Facebook plans on preventing pages and groups that spread misinformation about vaccinations from appearing over people's Facebook News Feeds and in search. Going forward, the groups and pages will no longer appear in recommendations or in predictions when you make Facebook searches.
In addition, the social network is pulling the plug on ads that attempt to target people interested in "vaccine controversies," Facebook vice president Monika Bickert wrote in a company post on Thursday.
"When we find ads that include misinformation about vaccinations, we will reject them," she wrote in the post. "For ad accounts that continue to violate our policies, we may take further action, such as disabling the ad account."
The crack down will also affect Instagram, which is owned by Facebook. The company will prevent the same controversial content from appearing over the Instagram Explore function an on hashtag pages.
The Google-owned YouTube is taking the same actions. In a letter to US Rep. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.), the video-sharing service said it has been preventing anti-vaccination videos from appearing in the site's recommendation engine and in search results.
"I agree with you that anything discouraging parents from vaccinating their children against vaccine-preventable diseases is concerning," wrote Google vice president for public affairs Karan Bhatia in the letter, which Schiff disclosed on Thursday.
Like Facebook, YouTube has also pulled advertising from videos that feature anti-vaccination conspiracy theories, a move the video-sharing site initially publicized last month.
Both YouTube and Facebook began taking action after Schiff sent a letter to both platforms last month about fighting "misinformation" from the anti-vaxxer movement.
On Thursday, Schiff also indicated that Amazon might be preparing to crack down on the same controversial content after sending a similar letter to the e-commerce giant last week. "I'm pleased that all three companies are taking this issue seriously and acknowledged their responsibility to provide quality health information to their users," Schiff said in a statement, which added: "Amazon has informed me they will also be responding to my letter in the coming days."
I've received official responses from @Google and @Facebook re: steps the companies will take to combat anti-vaccine misinformation.
The ultimate test will be if these measures reduce the spread of anti-vaccine content on their platforms, to the benefit of public health. — Adam Schiff (@RepAdamSchiff) March 7, 2019
The crack down probably won't sit well among free speech advocates. Both Facebook and YouTube have had to balance fighting misinformation against charges of censorship.
However, the crack down isn't a complete ban on the controversial content. For instance, Facebook made no mention of deleting pages or groups that carry the anti-vaccination content. Presumably, if users search hard enough, they'll still be able to find posts by supporters of the anti-vaxxer movement.
Nevertheless, both Facebook and YouTube plan on discouraging people from buying into conspiracies about vaccinations; they plan on attaching anti-vaxxer content with educational information from authoritative medical sources.
"We are exploring ways to give people more accurate information from expert organizations about vaccines at the top of results for related searches, on Pages discussing the topic, and on invitations to join groups about the topic," Facebook's Monika Bicket said. "We will have an update on this soon."
In a letter sent back to Schiff on Thursday, Facebook explained that although misinformation about vaccinations does not violate the company's terms of services, the content can nevertheless "cause harm."
"We want to help people stay informed, and have access to accurate information, but we do not want to prevent people from discussing their personal opinions or experiences, and we do not want to stifle debate," Facebook vice president Kevin Martin wrote in the letter.
"We also want to keep open the opportunity for counter-speech, which might require sharing inaccurate information in order to shine a light on it and rebut it," he added.