The US Food and Drug Administration announced on Oct. 29 that it authorized the use of the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine to children as young as five years old. Meta (Facebook) then revealed how it would handle that news—which, like other developments related to COVID-19 and efforts to vaccinate against it, is almost guaranteed to be contentious—on its platforms.
Meta says it’s taking “steps to promote reliable information to parents on our apps, including in-feed messages for more communities and new ad campaigns,” in response to the FDA’s announcement. It also says it will “enforce [its] policies on harmful content related to children and the COVID-19 vaccine” in an attempt to stop misinformation from reaching Facebook users.
“In the coming weeks we will be sending in-feed reminders in English and Spanish about vaccines being available for children 5-11 and the nearest location where they are available,” Meta says. “We will also be promoting in-feed messages from health experts answering questions about the COVID-19 vaccine and in-feed reminders that vaccines are now available for children ages 5-11, with a link to help locate the nearest location to get the vaccine.”
The company says it will also remove the following types of misinformation from its platform:
- Claims that the COVID-19 vaccines do not exist for children
- Claims that the COVID-19 vaccine for children is untested
- Claims that something other than a COVID-19 vaccine can vaccinate children against COVID-19
- Claims that the COVID-19 vaccines are unsafe for children
- Claims that the COVID-19 vaccines kill or seriously harm children
- Claims that the COVID-19 vaccines are not effective in preventing COVID-19 for children
These efforts follow the introduction of policies related to COVID-19 misinformation in February, the addition of vaccination center information to the COVID Information Center in March, and the debut of COVID-19 vaccine profile frames meant to encourage Facebook users to get the jab in April. But they also follow concerns that these initiatives have proven inadequate.
President Joe Biden complained about people using Facebook to spread misinformation in July, for example, and state attorneys general sought clarification about the company’s efforts to remove those harmful claims from its platform in October. Internal documents revealed to the public by a pair of whistleblowers have also criticized Facebook’s response to this issue.
Meta says it’s “removed more than 20 million pieces of content from Facebook and Instagram and over 3,000 accounts, Pages, and groups globally for spreading COVID-19 and vaccine misinformation” since the start of the pandemic, however, and that it’s also “connected over 2 billion people to authoritative information from health experts” within that time frame.
