Post that cast doubt on COVID vaccine most viewed between Jan to Mar 2021, says Facebook

On Saturday, social media giant Facebook released a report of the "most viewed content" on its platform. According to the report, a news article published by Chicago Tribune suggesting a “healthy” doctor had died after receiving the COVID-19 vaccine was the topmost viewed article on its platform between January 1, 2021, and March 31, 2021. According to the company’s Q1 Transparency Report, the news article with the headline: A ‘healthy’ doctor died two weeks after getting a COVID-19 vaccine; CDC is investigating why" become viral within seconds after the news outlet released the article on the social media giant. 

Check out the report here: 

The report said that The Chicago Tribune article was first published the article with the lines that read: "Two weeks after getting a COVID-19 vaccine, a Miami doctor died from a condition that causes internal bleeding". Later, the publication updated the article saying, "Although it developed suddenly, a medical examiner’s report said there isn’t enough evidence to rule out or confirm the vaccine was a contributing factor." Meanwhile, on August 22, Sunday, several US-based media outlets criticised the social media giant for withholding the internal report. It alleged that Facebook had released the report a day after such stories emerged on the top media web portals. 

Facebook Policy Communications Manager counter US media allegations

Countering the media claims, Policy Communications Manager at Facebook Andy Stone took to the microblogging site and said, "We’ve been getting criticism for holding an internal report until it was more favourable for us and then releasing it. Getting criticism isn’t unfair. But it’s worth taking a closer look -- and making note of some of the components of the story." News outlets wrote about the south Florida doctor that died. When the coroner released a cause of death, the Chicago Tribune appended an update to its original story; NYTimes did not. Would it have been right to remove the Times story because it was COVID misinformation?"

Facebook suspends Russian accounts running anti-vaccine campaign 

Earlier this week, Facebook turned heavily on the accounts running anti-vaccine campaigns against BioNTech-Pfizer and AstraZeneca. According to the statement released by Facebook, it has conducted an investigation in which it has found an organisation named Fazze-- a subsidiary of a UK-registered marketing firm whose operations were primarily conducted from Russia. The firm, which Facebook now bans, used to motivate influencers with pre-existing audiences on Instagram, YouTube and TikTok to post content related to the vaccine. These influencers were asked to use particular hashtags such as #AstraZenecakills and #AstraZenecalies to influence the larger audience.

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