Antivaccination information to be removed from site

NEW YORK: Facebook says it will remove groups and pages that spread misinformation about vaccinations on its site.

It is the latest step Facebook and others are taking to stem the tide of misinformation on social media sites.

Facebook said yesterday it would take its cue from global health organisations, such as the WHO and the US Centres for Disease Control and Prevention, which have publicly identified verifiable vaccine hoaxes.

If groups and pages spread those hoaxes, they would not appear in recommendations or in predictions functions when searched for in Facebook, the company said. Advertisements with similar information would be rejected.

Also, content that contained the misinformation would not be shown on Instagram Explore or hashtag pages, Facebook said.

Federal health officials have attributed a recent spike in the number of measles cases in part to misinformation that has made some parents shun the vaccine.

The bogus notion that vaccines cause autism — started by a now disproven study from 1998 — did not start on social networks but has spread there. While overall vaccination rates remain high in the US, according to the Centres for Disease Control, the number of children under 2 who have not received any vaccines is growing. The CDC attributes much of this to lack of health insurance, uninsured children being much more likely to be unvaccinated than those with such insurance.

Vaccination against a list of diseases is required to attend school in the US, but 17 states allow some type of nonmedical exemption for ‘‘personal, moral or other beliefs’’, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures. — AP