Anti-Vaxxers Countermeasures Show Why It's Not So Simple To Just 'Delete' Anti-Vax Misinfo On Social Media

Anti-Vaxxers Countermeasures Show Why It's Not So Simple To Just 'Delete' Anti-Vax Misinfo On Social Media

3 years ago
Anonymous $drS9DEX_Sj

https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20210722/10092747224/anti-vaxxers-countermeasures-show-why-not-so-simple-to-just-delete-anti-vax-misinfo-social-media.shtml

It's not a new thing that those without any experience in content moderation assume that it's somehow "easy" to just find and delete misinformation and disinformation online -- but it's often stunning how little they've thought through how all of this plays out. As the White House has stupidly been using its bully pulpit to pressure Facebook into deleting anti-vax misinformation, and elected officials are threatening legislation they must know is unconstitutional, none of them seem to recognize that it's not that easy.

Anyone who has done any work related to content moderation knows this. They know that the vast majority of misinformation is not that easy to spot. First of all, it's not clear what is misinformation. You could have someone who gets something inadvertently wrong. Or, perhaps they just misread something or misunderstand something. Is that misinformation that needs to be deleted? Also, there are things like sarcasm or criticism that frequently repeat the misinformation in order to respond to it. Then there are plenty of things that may seem like misinformation but tend to just be people posting stuff that is technically true, but without the necessary context. Does that need to also be deleted? There are tons of degrees involved in misinformation, and figuring out what should stay up and what should be taken down is not nearly as easy as many commentators make it out to be.

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