Misinformation Is Bigger Than Facebook, But Let’s Start There
Social networks’ addictive algorithms continue to provide safe harbor for anti-vaxxers. They need to change.
Photo illustration: NurPhoto/Getty Images
As the pandemic wears on, social media isn’t getting much healthier. A succession of dodgy cures, unsubstantiated theories, and direct anti-vaccination lies continues to spread in Facebook groups, YouTube videos, Instagram comments, TikTok hashtags, and tweets. Multiple members of Congress were suspended from Twitter or YouTube for peddling misinformation around the time President Joe Biden spoke out against social media platforms’ penchant for spreading false information.
“They’re killing people,” Biden said last month, answering a reporter’s question about the role of “platforms like Facebook” in the spread of Covid-related misinformation. In response, Facebook cited a study it conducted with researchers at Carnegie Mellon University that found increases in “vaccine acceptance” among its users over the course of 2021. (The company has also criticized the president for focusing on what it’s called a relative few bad actors, such as the prominent anti-vaxxer influencers the White House has dubbed the Disinformation Dozen.) Biden took a less directly confrontational tack a few days later.