Thread by @justhuman501c3

1/ In a recent article for @washingtonpost @GerritD speaks with Matt Halprin (VP of Global Trust and Safety, YouTube) to evaluate the social media platform’s efforts to remove anti-vaxx activists’ content.
washingtonpost.com/technology/202…

2/ Recently, YouTube put policies in place in order to eliminate anti-vaxx content.

YouTube had previously taken this action for COVID vaccines, but now all content that claims any vaccine “approved by Health authorities are ineffective or dangerous,” will be removed.

3/ Though these steps build on actions that YouTube, Facebook, & Twitter have previously taken to reduce inaccurate COVID content early in the pandemic, a parallel epidemic of social media misinformation still persists.

4/ S1E56 of Dr @celinegounder’s EPIDEMIC podcast, she has a conversation with @johnfocook, a professor at George Mason University who has been researching ways to combat misinformation.
bit.ly/3dIIvBD

5/ @johnfocook specializes in Inoculation Theory, which he describes as “a branch of psychological research dating back to the fifties. And it basically borrows the idea of vaccination and applies it to knowledge.”

6/ He explains, “If you expose people to a weakened form of misinformation, then that builds up their immunity, their resistance, so that when they encounter actual misinformation out in the real world, they’re less likely to be influenced.”

7/ In April, 2021, Dr @celinegounder testified before Congress’ Joint Economic Committee on COVID and vaccines. She warned that COVID misinformation would slow our public health and economic recovery from the pandemic.
​​jec.senate.gov/public/index.c…

8/ Her testimony inspired Sen @benraylujan & Sen @amyklobuchar to write a letter to the CEOs of Facebook & Twitter, urging them to take action to deplatform the “Disinformation Dozen,” who are responsible for the majority of COVID disinfo on social media.
bit.ly/3erAErg