Facebook and Instagram directing vaccine searches to CDC site

midian182

midian182

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In brief: Facebook’s battle against anti-vaccination content is continuing. The social network is now rolling out a feature that will see pop-ups direct people searching for information on vaccines to web pages from authoritative health organizations.

The “educational” messages will appear for people who access vaccine-related Facebook and Instagram Pages and Groups. Searching for the topic or using related hashtags will also show the pop-up.

Those in the US will be directed to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's (CDC) website, which offers an extensive amount of information on vaccinations. People outside of America will see a link to the World Health Organization’s site.

Back in March, Facebook said it would be reducing the ranking of Groups and Pages “that spread misinformation about vaccinations,” which means they won’t show up as much in the news feed and search results. Moreover, they won’t be included in recommendations or predictions when typing in the search bar.

Facebook also stopped allowing ads that include misinformation about vaccines and removed targeted advertising options such as “vaccine controversies.”

Facebook and Instagram aren’t alone in their fight to tackle anti-vax content. YouTube earlier this year targeted channels promoting anti-vaccinations, alternative and holistic medicine, or other forms of pseudoscience by demonetizing them and preventing them from running ads.

Pinterest, meanwhile, is only surfacing results from official health groups when users search for immunizations, and Indiegogo has banned anti-vaccine projects, introducing a new policy that requires health claims to be backed by scientific evidence.

The spread of anti-vaccine content on social media has been partly blamed on the number of new measles cases in the US. The situation means the World Health Organization could soon revoke America’s measles-elimination status—something it did for the UK last month.

Image credit: Tero Vesalainen via Shutterstock

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https://www.techspot.com/news/81761-facebook-instagram-directing-vaccine-searches-cdc-site.html

 
That should be a very effective way to cut down on all those "hack" vaccine "experts". It gets the point done without inhibiting the die-hard's from searching around for other opinions.
 
Anti-vaxxers really need to be shipped off to their own island where they can suffer numerous diseases on their own.
 
psycros said:
This should be useful. Hopefully more people will find out that the CDC says the flu vaccine has never been proven effective.
Click to expand...
If you are concerned about the effectiveness then you can just do your due diligence and read from an official source instead of saying whatever you read in a random comment on a random facebook post.

Here, official information on the effectiveness of the flu vaccines: https://www.cdc.gov/flu/about/qa/vaccineeffect.htm
 
psycros said:
This should be useful. Hopefully more people will find out that the CDC says the flu vaccine has never been proven effective.
Click to expand...
And if you also look at the possible side effects of the flu vaccine listed on the CDC web site, one of those listed is death!

The flu shot is a conglomeration of doctor's best guesses as to what is going to be the prominent strain of flu going around each year. It is well-known that the flu virus is highly mutable, and thus there is no guarantee that any particular year's flu vaccine will be effective because of this; I hate to tell everyone this who believes that the flu shot will always work, however, it is a gambling game. Even medical experts will tell you this, however, they will also tell you things like "even if you have severe reactions to it, you should still get it."

In fact, there have been a couple of news stories in the past few years where the experts admitted that they guessed wrongly and the flu shot was ineffective.

Though I have very rarely had the flu, I never get the flu shot because I have severe reactions to the flu shot, without fail, every single time I get it. I got a flu shot few years back to appease my doctor; I told him up-front that I will never get it again if I have a reaction to it. I told an insurance industry medical expert about the reaction I had to it and I was told: "That sounds like an allergic reaction. You should get tested for allergies." I was like WTF? I should subject myself to a barrage of expensive tests to get a shot for which I have literally no need?

Vaccines are not always safe - statistically they are, but there are always exceptions to the statistical norm. For any vaccine that has potential side-effects that are potentially severe - they do exist e.g., the flu vaccine, I think people need to be purposely cautious.
 
Puiu said:
psycros said:
This should be useful. Hopefully more people will find out that the CDC says the flu vaccine has never been proven effective.
Click to expand...
If you are concerned about the effectiveness then you can just do your due diligence and read from an official source instead of saying whatever you read in a random comment on a random facebook post.

Here, official information on the effectiveness of the flu vaccines: https://www.cdc.gov/flu/about/qa/vaccineeffect.htm
Click to expand...
From the link:
During years when the flu vaccine is not well matched to circulating influenza viruses, it is possible that little or no benefit from flu vaccination may be observed. During years when there is a good match between the flu vaccine and circulating viruses, it is possible to measure substantial benefits from flu vaccination in terms of preventing flu illness and complications. However, even during years when the flu vaccine match is good, the benefits of flu vaccination will vary, depending on various factors like the characteristics of the person being vaccinated, what influenza viruses are circulating that season and even, potentially, which type of flu vaccine was used.
Click to expand...
 
Cdc is to big pharma as fcc is to big telecom. They fund campaigns and advertising funded web sites. Not saying they always wrong, but definitely not always looking out for your best interest.
 
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Who cares what the CDC says, the problem is nothing in medical science is 100%, and there are no guarantees. I do vaccinate my children but there have been times when they got extremely sick days after the vaccine when they had been fine for over a year. Every body reacts differently and we also don't know the variables involved with the vaccines in terms of quality control - some may not be the proper proportions of things. Who knows, no doctor or medical expert can give you any guarantee as to exactly how the body will react. We do have general, common issues to expect but that is pretty much it.

Medical science is very frustrating and I can certainly understand why people are anti-drug and don't want to put anything in their child's body - unfortunately some doctors don't do a good job explaining the advantages of vaccines over the potential negatives assuming the parents even take their children to a doctor.
 
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IAMTHESTIG said:
Who cares what the CDC says, the problem is nothing in medical science is 100%, and there are no guarantees. I do vaccinate my children but there have been times when they got extremely sick days after the vaccine when they had been fine for over a year. Every body reacts differently and we also don't know the variables involved with the vaccines in terms of quality control - some may not be the proper proportions of things. Who knows, no doctor or medical expert can give you any guarantee as to exactly how the body will react. We do have general, common issues to expect but that is pretty much it.

Medical science is very frustrating and I can certainly understand why people are anti-drug and don't want to put anything in their child's body - unfortunately some doctors don't do a good job explaining the advantages of vaccines over the potential negatives assuming the parents even take their children to a doctor.
Click to expand...
In general, I agree.

It seems in this day and age that the average person really does not understand that medicine is a practice, and in being a practice, there is no guarantee. I am not saying it does not have its merits. There is real science behind it, however, due to the variables - mainly no medicine will necessarily effect everyone it is given to in the same way, the science behind it is pretty much always translated into a statistical number based on the results of clinical trials. There is the potential for any medicine to adversely affect anyone.

As to
unfortunately some doctors don't do a good job explaining the advantages of vaccines over the potential negatives assuming the parents even take their children to a doctor
Click to expand...
This makes me, personally, uncomfortable. It will depend on the doctor, but in no way should any doctor, IMO, exaggerate the benefits over the risks; if they do that, then to me, they are no better than marketing that aims to convince anyone to buy a particular product even though that product may not be right for them.

My doctor will use phrases like, in a small number of cases... To me, this plays on the statistical assessments drawn from the clinical trials and minimizes risks. Unless one does extensive research, it may never be known just how many people were in the trial, how good it was, who paid for it, etc. There are cases within the pharmaceutical industry of doctored, pun intended ;), trial results.
 
Now this is next level censoring

Im not an antivaxx, but I think this is going way too far lol
 
wiyosaya said:
From the link:
Click to expand...
Yes, there may be some weird years with many mutations in the influenza virus, but those are rare and in most cases the vaccine helps millions, as it is intended. This is one type of virus that we may not be able to eradicate, it evolves way too fast.
 
wiyosaya said:
In general, I agree.

It seems in this day and age that the average person really does not understand that medicine is a practice, and in being a practice, there is no guarantee. I am not saying it does not have its merits. There is real science behind it, however, due to the variables - mainly no medicine will necessarily effect everyone it is given to in the same way, the science behind it is pretty much always translated into a statistical number based on the results of clinical trials. There is the potential for any medicine to adversely affect anyone.

As to

This makes me, personally, uncomfortable. It will depend on the doctor, but in no way should any doctor, IMO, exaggerate the benefits over the risks; if they do that, then to me, they are no better than marketing that aims to convince anyone to buy a particular product even though that product may not be right for them.

My doctor will use phrases like, in a small number of cases... To me, this plays on the statistical assessments drawn from the clinical trials and minimizes risks. Unless one does extensive research, it may never be known just how many people were in the trial, how good it was, who paid for it, etc. There are cases within the pharmaceutical industry of doctored, pun intended ;), trial results.
Click to expand...
The number of cases mentioned by your doctored are not from "controlled tests" but from real life documented results (unless we are talking about experimental vaccines that aren't available to the general public and are undergoing clinical tests).
 
When your kid or someone else's kid is dying because you didn't vax are you going to search the net or go to a doctor? Well what would that doctor say about vax?
 
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