Anti-vax campaigns have entered the conversation around misinformation on the internet, with false theories about the harms that come with vaccinations spreading on platforms like Facebook and Youtube. The role fundraising sites play in this has mostly gone unnoticed, until now. Recently, GoFundMe shared it will remove anti-vax campaigns on its website, as reported by The Daily Beast. A spokesman for GoFundMe told the outlet, “Campaigns raising money to promote misinformation about vaccines violate GoFundMe’s terms of service and will be removed from the platform.” According to The Daily Beast, fundraisers by anti-vax groups have raised at least $170,000 in the last four years on GoFundMe. That’s a significant amount of money. Removing their ability to use GoFundMe may not completely defund anti-vax groups, but it’ll definitely make things harder for them moving forward. Anti-vax campaigns can be dangerous not only because some of them use bad science, but also because they have...

The 2020 presidential election is right around the corner and with it come questions around social media’s potential impact on the outcome. Social media’s potential to spread misinformation has been in the news a lot over the past few years and its evolved from something most people saw as a place to connect with friends to a machine that disrupts key parts of our democracy. People are able to curate their timelines and newsfeeds, but algorithms hold the real power, working behind the scenes to regulate the content you see, from targeted ads to the publications that are presented to you. With social media essentially shaping the information you get, many people are concerned about the spread of misinformation. After all, not everything that you read on the internet is true, and social media platforms themselves have been guilty of spreading misinformation or otherwise allowing election interference to occur. Perhaps the most infamous case of election interference spurred by social...

Across social media, vaccine misinformation continues to be a huge issue. Earlier this week, CNN reported that despite Facebook’s pledge to fight vaccine misinformation on its platforms, Instagram still didn’t have the problem under control. The report said that anyone who searched the word “vaccines” would be greeted with posts from anti-vax accounts and hashtags. At a San Francisco Press event on Thursday , Instagram announced that it would begin blocking hashtags advertising “verifiably false” information regarding vaccinations. The new policy will also extend Instagram’s ban policy to hashtags that may seem innocent but are also spreading bad information. “If the hashtag was #vaccines1234, if it contained a high proportion of known vaccine misinformation, we would block that hashtag entirely,” said Karina Newton, Instagram’s global head of public policy, according to The Verge. In the past, Instagram has blocked hashtags promoting false information, Engadget reported . For...

Misinformation continues to be a huge problem online, especially for social media platforms. Previously, Facebook tried tackling it by introducing rules against groups and ads that deliberately spread wrong information about vaccines and political opponents. Unfortunately, that wasn’t enough. Now, Facebook has introduced updates that include harsher punishments for groups and individuals spreading misinformation across its platforms. In its blog post, Facebook said it plans to reduce the reach of groups that “repeatedly share misinformation”. The company will also add a “click gap” feature to the newsfeed to make sure people see less low-quality content. Lastly, Facebook will partner with the Associated Press, who will serve as a third-party fact-checker. Any content approved by the AP will be expanded on the platform. The moves come as Facebook gears up for another turbulent election season, finds new ways to combat vaccine misinformation, and continues to ban pages associated with...