Mark Zuckerberg, Chairman of Facebook, speaks on the second day of the 56th Munich Security Conference, 15 February 2020, Bavaria, Munich (Tobias Hase/picture-alliance/dpa/AP Images)
Unraveling viral disinformation and explaining where it came from, the harm it's causing, and what we should do about it.
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- Carrie Madej — a QAnon-supporting doctor who spoke at the Jan. 6 pro-Trump rally before the storming of the Capitol.
- Markus Haintz — an attorney who has represented anti-vaxxer Robert F. Kennedy Jr.
- Knut Wittkowski — an epidemiologist who has criticized masks and social distancing and supported herd immunity as a response to the pandemic.
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Central to the skepticism is the fact that this is not the first time the company has said it would do better. In December, the company said it would remove some false claims about vaccines, and declared that ads that make false claims about vaccines are not allowed.Critics and advocates have been trying for years to get Facebook to remove anti-vaxx conspiracy theories, with no luck. The company typically hid behind a free speech argument, despite evidence that the content was demonstrably harmful to people’s health.But even now, the size and scale of the problem on Facebook is unknown, because the company simply won’t reveal the data it has on how many people have been impacted by this disinformation.
And even when Facebook does get it right, it somehow manages to mess it all up again.After Facebook removed the page of notorious anti-vaxxer Del Bigtree in November, for violating its policies against “misinformation that could cause physical harm,” he managed to continue to spread his disinformation on a new Facebook page—cryptically called “Del Bigtree.”