As part of its efforts against misinformation of health, Pinterest is now displaying information from public health organizations for keywords such as “measles” or “vaccine safety.” The social media platform previously blocked vaccination-related search terms, but a new announcement says the company. Wants to turn off “data null,” resulting in misinformation being spread more widely than accurate information.
“What we and others have seen is an encouraging difference between those creating and disseminating harmful health misinformation and the resources inherent in systematic science,” wrote Ifoma Ozoma, Pineest’s public policy, and social impact manager. “In general, there is more accessible and visually impaired health information than science-based journal articles on the merits of vaccination. Also, we have found that some priests have financial incentives for health-related misinformation.”
Pinterest search results for health-related keywords will now display information from the World Health Organization, the Vaccine Safety Net (created by WHO to provide vaccine information in different languages), the American Academy of Pediatrics and the Centers of Disease Control.
Also, an information card on top of the results notifies users that “pins about this topic often violate our Community Guidelines, which prohibit harmful medical misinformation. Because of this, we’ve limited search results to Pins from internationally-recognized health organizations. If you’re looking for medical advice, please contact a healthcare provider.”
Users also won’t see recommendations or comments on Pins in these search results. “We’re taking this approach because we believe that showing vaccine misinformation alongside resources from public health experts isn’t responsible,” said Ozoma.
The new search feature is currently available in English on the Pinterest website and iPhone and Android apps and will be expanded to other languages. Ozoma wrote that Pinterest would first focus on vaccine-related searches, but “keep up our list of terms for which we block medical misinformation and provide expert advice as people go around our security measures.” Let’s try. We will also continue to remove this content and accounts, which spread it from our service. “
Importantly for a visually-based platform, Pinterest, which has more than 300 million visitors a month, is also developing resources that health organizations can use to create engaging pins for text-based information. Are.
Once filled with anti-vaccine pins (in 2016, researchers found that most vaccine-related posts on Pinterest contain anti-vaccine sentiment), Pinterest is one of the most active social media platforms in terms of preventing the spread of misinformation Has become about vaccines. In 2017, it started banning pins with “anti-vaccination advice,” which has always been prohibited by its advertising policies.
Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube have also initiated measures to stop the spread of anti-vaccine content, leading to the return of diseases such as measles worldwide. In the US, the Centers for Disease Control said that between 1 January and 22 August, 1,215 cases of measles were confirmed, the most significant number of reported cases in the country since 1992, and since measles declared to have ended in 2000, it was done.
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