Facebook executives have failed to cope with the influx of criticism and misinformation on social media regarding coronavirus vaccines. This assessment was made by The Wall Street Journal, whose journalists managed to get acquainted with the company’s internal documents, TASS reports.
According to the newspaper, 41% of comments in English under publications on the topic of vaccinations contained their criticism and pushed, rather, to refuse vaccination.
In March 2021, the head of Facebook, Mark Zuckerberg, announced that the company was launching an information program that was designed to induce at least 50 million people to be vaccinated against COVID-19. It was supposed that tools would be introduced to weed out misinformation about vaccinations, provide users with all the necessary data about vaccination points, as well as make it possible to make an appointment with a doctor.
According to the documents that came into the possession of the publication, analysts of the social platform warned management that 41% of comments in English under publications on the topic of vaccinations contained their criticism and pushed people to refuse vaccination. Users came across such comments on average 775 million times daily.
In July, failures in the fight against misinformation about vaccines drew criticism from US President Joe Biden, who said that social networks that allow spreading false information about coronavirus and vaccines on their platforms are effectively killing people.