Social media platforms have attempted to remove misinformation about vaccines because it obstructs efforts to end the COVID-19 pandemic. We examined whether Facebook's vaccine misinformation removal policies were effective. Posts and engagements in anti-vaccine pages were reduced to 29% and 23% of pre-policy levels, respectively, but recovered over the subsequent six months. Posts and engagements in pro-vaccine pages were also reduced -- to 68% and 30% of pre-policy levels, respectively. Low-credibility content became more prevalent in anti-vaccine pages and groups, and high-credibility content became less prevalent in pro-vaccine pages. Links between anti-vaccine pages and coordinated inauthentic behavior were also reduced. Our results suggest that Facebook's policies were only partially successful. Facebook's attempts at self-regulation appear to have been resource intensive, and ineffective in the long term.
翻译:社交媒体平台试图消除有关疫苗的错误信息,因为它阻碍了终止COVID-19大流行的努力。我们研究了Facebook疫苗错误信息清除政策是否有效。在反疫苗网页上和工作次数分别减少到政策前水平的29%和23%,但在随后的六个月中恢复了。亲疫苗网页上和工作次数也分别减少到68%和30%。低可信度内容在反疫苗网页和团体中更为普遍,高可信度内容在支持疫苗的网页中越来越不那么普遍。反疫苗网页与协调的不道德行为之间的联系也减少了。我们的结果表明,Facebook的政策只取得了部分成功。脸书的自我监管尝试似乎耗费了大量资源,而且长期来说是无效的。