Facebook algorithms promote COVID misinformation
A new study has found that Facebook not only contains a mountain of anti-vaxx sites, the social network’s algorithms are enticing users to them.
A new study has found that Facebook not only contains a mountain of anti-vaxx sites, the social network’s algorithms are enticing users to them.
The study found that Facebook is recommending new types of conspiracy groups to them, such as anti-mask sites and conspiracy theories about 5G to those seeking health information.
The scathing report, by online misinformation monitoring site NewsGuard, follows hot on the heels of US president Joe Biden’s condemnation of the platform.
He said social media sites like Facebook are “killing people” by allowing Covid-19 vaccine site misinformation.
In its study, NewsGuard found plenty of examples where Facebook is actively recommending dozens of dangerous sites to its users.
NewsGuard, which monitors and rates all kinds of news sites for its members, last year announced a partnership with the World Health Organisation to combat online misinformation about COVID-19 and vaccines.
NewsGuard says it has sent the WHO a variety of reports and data highlighting trending health hoaxes and conspiracies across Facebook, Instagram, and YouTube.
“The WHO has shared the reports with digital platforms to alert them to misinformation and hoaxes on their platforms, “it says.
“These reports identify large social media pages, accounts, and public and private groups that encourage the spread of false and often dangerous narratives about the virus and vaccines.”
The question is that if a small outfit like NewsGuard can expose these problems on Facebook, why can’t Facebook find them itself?
The report says that on July 20, a NewsGuard analyst began by ‘liking’ a single anti-vaccine Facebook page, upon which a Facebook drop down suggested several more anti-vaccine pages.
“The analyst repeated the process by clicking on one of the recommended pages, ‘liking’ the page, and receiving Facebook’s recommendations for more anti-vaccine pages.
“Within 10 minutes, the analyst was recommended dozens of pages publishing vaccine and COVID-19 misinformation, many with thousands of followers.
“Facebook’s recommendation function funnels users towards a seemingly endless stream of anti-vaccine and health misinformation pages,” says NewsGuard.
“The ‘Related Pages’ function also appears in the form of a static sidebar, so that users may be recommended a separate anti-vaccine page multiple times,” it says.
One puzzling finding is that by recommending anti-vaxxer and COVID misinformation pages to users, Facebook’s algorithms presumably knows what an anti-vaxxer site is. So why not eliminate it?
Facebook also appears to introduce users reading fake health messaging to other conspiratorial groups, such as people who are opposed to masks or 5G conspiracy theorists.
“When users click the ‘Like’ button on this 25,000-follower vaccine misinformation page, a ‘Related Pages’ drop down recommends more anti-vaccine Pages, as well as Pages that publish misinformation about COVID-19, masks, 5G, and other health topics,” says NewsGuard’s report.
In a second study, NewsGuard looked at Facebook pages and groups publishing COVID-19 and vaccine misinformation to large audiences.
They included Facebook pages calling for the jailing of Microsoft founder Bill Gates, US chief medical adviser Anthony Fauci and billionaire investor George Soros, sites that branded The World Health Organisation as “a hoax” and Australian anti-vaxxer sites.
“For the purposes of this analysis, we focused on searches for which the searcher‘s intent could reasonably have been to search for accurate information about a topic,” says NewsGuard.
It says several of these pages and groups remain active and growing – and are visible to Facebook’s “billions of users unaccompanied by any warnings about their reliability”.
“Some of these pages, identified by NewsGuard as early as September 2020, have since gained thousands of news followers on the platform.
“Examples of misinformation being allowed to spread on these groups and pages include false claims that COVID-19 vaccines have killed millions of people (and) false claims that masks, PCR tests, lockdowns, and vaccines ‘don’t work’.
“Two of the pages included in NewsGuard’s June 2021 report have since seen their following increase by 4,000 and 2,500 respectively.
“One page, flagged in September 2020, has since published false claims that COVID-19 vaccines are a plan to reduce the world’s population and that the Pfizer COVID-19 vaccine is 99 per cent graphene oxide, among others.”
NewsGuard says the WHO has termed rampant misinformation and hoaxes on the social media platforms an “infodemic”. “Hesitancy to take the vaccine is endangering the path to herd immunity in many countries”, it says.
Facebook told The Australian it is prepared to take action on what the report found.
“We are reviewing the report and will take action against pages or groups that violate our policies,” says a Facebook company spokesperson in a statement.
“Since the beginning of the pandemic, we have removed 18 million pieces of COVID misinformation, labelled over 167 million pieces of false content, and connected over 2 billion people with authoritative information through tools like our COVID Information Centre,” the spokesperson says.
Facebook says more than 6.2 million Australians have visited authoritative information through its COVID-19 Information Centre during the pandemic.
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