8-19-2021
Facebook purges shell accounts linked to anti-vax pages
known as 'disinformation dozen':
On Thursday, CNN reported that Facebook has announced
action against an infamous group of
pages known as the "disinformation dozen" by restricting
and locking dozens of accounts and
groups associated with them.
The "disinformation dozen" are a group of 12 people who, according to a study conducted earlier this year, are responsible for
73 percent of all anti-vaccine propaganda spreading
on Facebook.
"In making the announcement, Monika Bickert, vice president of content policy at Facebook, pushed back against the narrative that the twelve accounts were primarily responsible for the spread of vaccine misinformation, writing that focusing on them
'misses the forest for the trees,'" reported Oliver Darcy.
"But, Bickert said, 'Any amount of COVID-19 vaccine misinformation that violates our policies is too much by our standards — and we have removed over three dozen Pages, groups and Facebook or Instagram accounts linked to these
12 people, including at least one linked to each of the 12 people, for violating our policies.'"
Among the "disinformation dozen" are-
Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who has pushed anti-vaccine falsehoods
for years;
Dr. Joseph Mercola, a Florida-based osteopathic physician and
top purveyor of alternative and supplement-based health remedies;
Dr. Sherri Tenpenny, who attracted national attention after
telling a group of Ohio lawmakers that vaccines turn people
into magnets.
Facebook has frequently been criticized for a lack of initiative in removing disinformation from its social network. In recent weeks, the company has sought
to crack down, including removing a Russia-based anti-vax propaganda network.
Some anti-vax activists, however, are going underground, using code words to continue to spread falsehoods and evade content moderation.
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