CNN: “Last week, even as it came under fire from the White House over its role in spreading anti-vaccine misinformation, Facebook hadn’t taken the simple step of blocking the #VaccinesKill hashtag on its platform. Now the hashtag is hidden on the platform, locked behind a message that says Facebook is ‘keeping our community safe.’ The change happened hours after CNN Business asked Facebook why the page full of anti-vaccination falsehoods was easy to find.”
“If this sounds familiar, it’s because almost the exact same thing happened with Facebook-owned Instagram two years ago, during one of the company’s previous efforts to tell people that, seriously, it really was doing a great job of moderating anti-vaccine content. It’s yet another example of the Whack-a-mole that happens all across social media. Reporters or other users notice content that clearly violates a platform’s policies; they ask why it is being permitted; the platform whacks it away; and then the cycle repeats.”