Facebook to label all posts that discuss coronavirus vaccines

Facebook will start labeling all posts that discuss COVID-19 vaccines in an effort to combat misinformation, the company said Monday. 

Facebook will initially add labels with information from the World Health Organization to posts that discuss the safety of vaccines, Facebook said in a blog post. The labels will state that vaccines go through testing for safety and efficacy before they are approved. 

The social media giant said it will then roll out labels in the coming weeks for more general posts about the vaccines that will point users to information about them, and plans to add additional targeted labels with subtopics about the inoculations. 

Facebook is launching the safety labels globally in English, Spanish, Indonesian, Portuguese, Arabic and French and will add additional languages in the coming weeks.

Additionally, Facebook said it is partnering with the Boston Children’s Hospital on a tool that will help users in the U.S. identify sites where they can get a coronavirus vaccine. The tool will be supported in 71 different languages and Facebook said it plans to expand it to other countries as the vaccine is distributed more widely. 

Facebook’s push comes as officials have scrutinized the platform’s handling of misinformation about the coronavirus and the vaccines. 

Facebook in February expanded a list of false claims it will remove during the pandemic to include debunked claims about the vaccine. The company said it has removed 2 million pieces of content from Facebook and Instagram since the updated policy. 

President Biden in an address last week stated that all American adults will be eligible for the vaccine by May 1 at the latest.