Facebook Bans Anti-Vax Ads But Not Anti-Vax Content

The Verge reports:

On Tuesday, Facebook announced a new policy banning ads that discourage the use of vaccines. Timed to the beginning of flu season, the new policy is also aimed at the ongoing proliferation of anti-vaccine groups on Facebook and growing skepticism about forthcoming vaccines for COVID-19.

“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,” the company said in a blog post. “We don’t want these ads on our platform.”

There are still several ads from anti-vaccination groups currently running on the platform, but Facebook says it will begin enforcing the new policy “over the next few days.” The anti-vaccination groups themselves will continue to be allowed on the platform — organic or unpaid content discouraging vaccination is still permitted, per Facebook’s platform rules.

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