As the global pandemic spread, Facebook staffers warned Mark Zuckerberg that misinformation and anti-vaccination posts were running rampant on the platform. Yet the company was failing at cracking down on removing and moderating misleading and false posts related to COVID-19, according to an investigative series from The Wall Street Journal.
Zuckerberg had said Facebook was going to push 50 million people toward COVID vaccines, yet Facebook’s own research was revealing that comments were spreading about anti-vaccine sentiments, ranging from people’s objections to conspiracy theories. For months, Facebook continued trying to catch up to these posts that were flooding its platform and undermining the vaccination efforts globally.