Facebook groups dedicated to anti-vaccine posts, which have seen an unprecedented increase during the Covid-19 pandemic, are employing a new tactic to avoid detection by the algorithm.
In fact, since the first hours of the pandemic, Facebook has implemented a system to identify information related to Covid-19 and label it as such. This system works in particular thanks to certain keywords, including “vaccine”. The social network also prohibits from February 2021 making comments that claim that the vaccine is dangerous.
The moderation algorithm focuses mainly on words, the actors of these groups use the emoji that illustrates a carrot to replace the word “vaccine”, in particular in the publications that aim to share death notices that impute, without this it is shown, to the vaccine.
One of these groups, which has existed for more than a year, brings together 250,000 members, and indicates in its statutes the prohibition of the use of words such as “vaccine”, “covid” or even “booster dose”. Instead, they advocate the use of innocent-looking emojis, like this carrot.
Camouflage
The BBC informed Facebook of the presence of such groups, and the social network indicated in a press release that it would remove them, specifying the reason for the “dangerous misinformation”. However, the outlet noted that the groups had appeared in the search results again, under different names.
In addition to using emojis to camouflage themselves, these groups claim to share “funny images and videos”, although most of their content is misinformation stories related to the covid-19 vaccine.
Source: BFM TV
