Facebook assured Wednesday that its efforts to promote vaccination against Covid-19 were effective, despite numerous criticisms leveled against it for its role in the spread of medical disinformation.
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“For Facebook users in the United States, vaccine reluctance has decreased by 50%,”
Guy Rosen, a vice president of the social media giant, said at a press conference.
“The acceptance of the vaccine is also increasing in the world (...). Since the start of the year it has increased by 35% in France, 25% in Indonesia and 20% in Nigeria. This is all going in the right direction, ”
he continued, citing a survey conducted in partnership with Carnegie-Mellon University and Maryland University.
The debate over disinformation linked to the pandemic has grown to such proportions that in July US President Joe Biden estimated that Facebook and other platforms were "killing" people by letting circulate false information on the vaccination against the Covid.
The response from Mark Zuckerberg's group was scathing:
"The facts show that Facebook helps save lives, period
.
"
The Head of State then qualified his remarks.
List of 65 misconceptions
On Tuesday, the platform again demonstrated its efforts, from highlighting authoritative sources (such as the World Health Organization), to promoting vaccines and combating misleading content. The automated detection systems and the moderators are based in particular on a list of 65 misconceptions that are systematically removed because of the dangers they represent for the population.
"Last month, we added to our list the claims that vaccines against Covid-19 cause Alzheimer's, make you magnetic, or that we can have side effects just by hanging out with vaccinated people
,
"
said Monika Bickert. , the vice-president in charge of regulations. She also mentioned the problem of
"Coded languages"
that users use to disseminate false information despite prohibitions.
From the start of the pandemic in June, the group said it had deleted 20 million pieces of content on Facebook and Instagram and more than 3,000 accounts, pages and groups that were breaking the rules on disinformation related to the virus.
But these numbers don't show how well those posts were read before they were taken down.
The social network regularly publishes figures on the prevalence of certain problematic content (hate speech, for example), but it is
"more difficult to define and measure"
for the Covid, said Guy Rosen.