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Anti-vaccine activists ordered at the Massachusetts Parliament Building in August that Governor Charlie Baker’s childcare, kindergarten, kindergarten to high school, and all students enrolled in higher education institutions must be vaccinated against influenza this year. Protested against.

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Scott Eisen / Getty Images

Anti-vaccine activists ordered at the Massachusetts Parliament Building in August that Governor Charlie Baker’s childcare, kindergarten, kindergarten to high school, and all students enrolled in higher education institutions must be vaccinated against influenza this year. Protested against.

Scott Eisen / Getty Images

Updated to ET at 7:05 pm

Facebook announced on Tuesday that it will ban vaccination prevention ads under widespread pressure on social networks to curb harmful content.

Under the new global policy, the company will no longer accept ads that discourage people from vaccination. Advertisements that describe the vaccine as unsafe or ineffective. Or ads claiming diseases that the vaccine prevents are harmless.

“We don’t want these ads on our platform,” wrote Facebook officials Kang-Xing Jin and Rob Leathern. Blog post.. “Our goal is to ensure that the message about vaccine safety and efficacy reaches a wide range of people, while at the same time banning advertisements that contain false information that could harm public health efforts. “

The new policy also applies to Instagram. Facebook has announced that it will begin enforcement in the next few days.

The move is a reversal of Facebook’s long-standing reluctance to crack down on what people are allowed to say, hoping to encourage freedom of speech. Public health groups and other critics are calling for the elimination of widespread misinformation on platforms with more than 3 billion monthly active users.

This year, the company cracked down on hoaxes and falsehoods Coronavirus..Already there Misinformation and hoaxes of banned vaccines It has been identified by global health organizations such as the World Health Organization and the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

The new policy does not completely ban opposition to vaccines. The company will continue to accept ads against the government’s vaccination policy. However, these ads cannot explicitly prevent vaccination or make false claims, Facebook spokeswoman Devon Kearns told NPR.

The ban also applies only to paid advertising, not to a much larger number of regular posts, including users with large numbers of followers and posts in private groups where false alarms are widespread.

Renée Di Resta, who is studying false information at the Stanford University Internet Observatory, may have limited impact on NPR’s spread of false claims about vaccines among already skeptics and groups. Means that there is.

“This is important to prevent people from using ads to target new audiences who aren’t drawn into the rabbit hole,” she said. “But you shouldn’t expect this to confuse those who are already in the rabbit hole.”

Ad bans are the latest in a series of steps Facebook has taken to limit harmful content, and in some cases have been under long-standing pressure from critics.For the past few weeks, we have banned postings to advertise Holocaust denial, Unfounded Canon Conspiracy Theory and Armed Militia Group.Also, a temporary announcement Prohibition of political advertising After the election day is over.

The coronavirus pandemic, according to Di Resta, seems to have changed the way Facebook thinks about false health information in particular.

“For a long time, researchers and activists have been trying to point out that harm is not just related to the imminent call for violence,” she said. “COVID is a global issue. We are working in an era when outbreaks are not locally restricted, and they are more about how to define what is an authoritative, reputable source of health. I had to take a broad view. ”

Facebook said its new attitude towards vaccination advertising is part of its daily assessment of the policy.

“We regularly improve our approach to advertising on social issues to capture the debate and debate on sensitive topics on Facebook. Vaccines are no exception. Vaccines may be narrowed in some areas. But it may expand in other areas, “Jin and Lesan wrote in a post on Tuesday.

Facebook also said on Tuesday that it would guide people to information about the flu vaccine and where US users can get it. It is also working with WHO and UNICEF on messaging campaigns to increase vaccination coverage.

Editor’s Note: Facebook is one of NPR’s financial backers.