As COVID-19 surged, the social media company pointed users to all sorts of anti-vaccine and anti-mask groups

Facebook said it would no longer recommend anti-vaccine groups, but it hasn't done so.

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2021-05-20 13:56:26

As COVID-19 surged, the social media company pointed users to all sorts of anti-vaccine and anti-mask groups By Corin Faife and Dara Kerr

Facebook broadcast a sweeping pledge in a Feb. 8 blog post: It would remove false claims about vaccines from its platform. The declaration followed a series of promises over the preceding months to curb bogus health information on its site, particularly misinformation surrounding the pandemic. This included a commitment in September to stop recommending “health groups” in order to halt the practice of people turning to fellow Facebook users instead of doctors for medical advice.

But data from The Markup’s Citizen Browser project shows that not only is COVID-19 misinformation still easy to find on Facebook, the company has also continued to recommend health groups to its users, including blatantly anti-vaccine groups and pages explicitly founded to propagate lies about the pandemic. 

Citizen Browser consists of a nationwide panel of Facebook users who automatically share their news feed data with The Markup, including which groups the platform recommends they join. 

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