US Edition
How social media giants make anti-vax propaganda easy to find
“Every. Single. Day. Another. Child. Murdered” reads the caption below the picture of a young baby, dressed in pink, wearing a tiny pair of socks on her hands as scratch mitts.
The image, shared on Instagram by an account dubbed ‘vaccines_revealed’, has been liked 217 times since September.
“I tell myself all the time that I’m going to take a break from posting about vaccines...but then I see this,” the author writes. According to the caption, the child in question died shortly after having her eight-week inoculations.
It is one of thousands of anti-vaccine posts circulating on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter and other social media platforms which warn people away from inoculating their children.
Telegraph reporters took a matter of seconds to find them, despite pledges by the web giants to make it harder for anti-vaxxers to use their platforms to spread false claims.
Many of the posts insist that the measles, mumps and rubella jab triggers autism, even though the research that first alleged this link has been debunked.
Health Secretary Matt Hancock has warned that posts like these are driving down the vaccination rates in the UK. Childhood vaccination rates are now falling for every major illness.
Last month, Facebook founder and chief executive officer Mark Zuckerberg told a US Congress hearing that the social media giant is making efforts to “stop the spread of misinformation”.
And in March, Monika Bickert, Facebook’s vice president of global policy management, vowed that it would “reduce the rankings” of pages and groups that share false claims.
In addition, she pledged that Facebook – which also owns Instagram - would “reject” adverts “that include misinformation about vaccines”.
Since then Facebook’s algorithm appears to have downgraded anti-vaccination information for any searches that include the word ‘vaccine’.
However, large numbers of posts are still easily found with a simple search for related terms and a few clicks.
A search for ‘MMR injection’ and ‘mumps jab’ immediately brought up anti-vaccine posts. One claimed that a child had nearly had her arm amputated after having the MMR jab.
Another, originally shared by the group ‘JABS: Justice, Awareness and Basic Support’, said: ‘How many parents were prosecuted for shaken baby syndrome when all the while it was vaccines?”
Facebook also provides controversial suggested searches for those seeking more information about vaccines. Under a search for ‘vaccine advice’ Facebook suggested other searches including ‘vaccine damage’ and ‘vaccine injuries’.
While Facebook has made efforts in recent months to direct users to the World Health Organisation website for information on vaccines the misinformation was easily accessible on Instagram despite the platform being owned by Facebook.
Under a search for ‘#vaccine’ on Instagram the Telegraph found alarming content high up in the search results, including a post showing a billboard with a smiling child and baby and the words "We Were Healthy, Vaccines Killed Us”, posts claiming vaccines are contaminated and that vaccines cause autism, cancer and depression in children.
On Instagram a post with a graphic that claimed the measles vaccine has caused 6,445 hospitalisations, 1706 disabilities and 449 deaths was high up in the search results when searching under the ‘vaccine’ hashtag.
Instagram also hosts profiles with the names ‘vaccine holocaust’ with the tagline ‘vaccines harm and kill. Everything you’ve been told is a lie. Prepare to be enlightened’.
The photo-sharing platform has a disclaimer pointing users to the WHO information on vaccines that pops up when users search for vaccine advice, but it also prominently displays alarmist content about the perceived dangers of vaccines.
Meanwhile, a search on Twitter for ‘hep b’ brings up posts that claim a baby dies every 10 days because of the Hepatitis B vaccine and a person claiming to have been paralysed from the waist down from the vaccine.
When searching under ‘MMR’ on Twitter one of the first posts to pop up claimed an 18-month year old developed autism shortly after having the MMR jab and another child became quadriplegic. Numerous studies have debunked the claim that vaccinations can cause autism.
Another prominent post claimed 55% of children had suffered respiratory illnesses after having the MMR jab.
A Twitter disclaimer at the top of some search results states ‘Know the facts. To make sure you get the best information on vaccination, resources are available from the NHS’.
A Facebook spokesperson said: “To effectively combat vaccine misinformation, we work hard to reduce its spread on our platforms, and show legitimate, credible sources to give people accurate information.
"Leading global health organisations, such as the World Health Organization, have publicly identified verifiable vaccine hoaxes; if these vaccine hoaxes appear on our platforms we will take action against them. We are fully committed to the safety of our community and are working with external health experts to make sure we get this right.”
A spokesperson for Twitter said: “Twitter’s main priority as a company is to protect the health of the public conversation on the service. We enforce our rules against fake accounts, platform manipulation and spam every single day, as part of the broader effort to surface high-quality content on the service.”