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 The move is an aggressive effort to moderate content by the newly
public social media company. Social media platforms have been
increasingly under fire for promoting misleading and incorrect
content, including by opponents of vaccination.
Pinterest said a search for "measles," "vaccine safety" and other
related health terms now would return results from organizations
including the World Health Organization (WHO), the U.S. Centers for
Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), the American Academy of
Pediatrics (AAP) and the WHO-established Vaccine Safety Net (VSN).
The site will also ban ads, comments or recommendations on those
pages, to avoid any misinformation being shown.
"Generally, there's more accessible and visually compelling health
misinformation than science-based journal articles on the virtues of
vaccinations," Ifeoma Ozoma, Pinterest's public policy and social
impact manager, said in a blog post.
The World Health Organization said the reluctance or refusal to
vaccinate was one of 10 threats to global health in 2019, citing the
resurgence of diseases such as measles.
Trust in vaccines is highest in poor countries but weaker in
wealthier ones, according to a global study conducted by Gallup and
funded by global health charity The Wellcome Trust that was released
in June.
Pinterest's announcement follows its decision to block all searches
for vaccine information earlier this year, staking out a stronger
stance than other platforms.
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In March, Facebook Inc said it would reduce the rankings of groups
and pages that spread misinformation about vaccines and would reject
ads that spread false information about vaccines. It also said it
would stop recommending this content on Instagram's Explore page.
Search results on Instagram, however, can still return anti-vaccine
content. In an Instagram search for "vaccines" on Wednesday, the
first result was an account called "Vaccines Uncovered," which said
in its bio that it tells "real stories" of vaccine injuries and
vaccine deaths that the "mainstream media won't show you." It has
nearly 58,000 followers.
In the last year, Google's streaming site YouTube also stopped
running ads on anti-vaccine videos, citing a ban against harmful and
dangerous content in its advertising policy. The site said it had
adjusted its algorithms to show more authoritative content in search
results across news and science content.
(Reporting by Elizabeth Culliford; Additional reporting by Katie
Paul and Paresh Dave; editing by Peter Henderson and Leslie Adler)
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