Daily Mail
March 22, 2019
Instagram will block anti-vaxx hashtags in an ongoing attempt to crack down on medical misinformation being shared on the social-media site.
The Facebook-owned company announced it will minimise ‘recommendations of this content and accounts that post it’.
‘Short-term measures’ will include blocking hashtags associated with ‘known health-related misinformation’, including #vaccinescauseautism, #vaccinesarepoison and #vaccinescauseharm.
However, a spokesperson from the social-media giant warned it will take several weeks for the move to come into effect, with these hashtags still being active on Instagram today.
Vaccines are one of the greatest advances of modern medicine, rendering life-threatening diseases that could reach epidemic proportions into rarities.
The spread of misinformation online has been blamed for the ‘anti-vaxx brigade’, considered one of the greatest threats to public health worldwide.
This article was posted: Friday, March 22, 2019 at 5:36 am
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