No more syringe, place for carrots… To avoid having their publications deleted on Facebook, some anti-vaccine groups have found a new parade. Since the platform’s moderation algorithm mainly detects words – and not images – antivaxers now use the emoji illustrating a carrot to replace the word “vaccine” in their publications.
A specialist in disinformation, interviewed by the BBC, infiltrated one of these groups and showed, screenshot in support, how they proceeded. “I was invited to a Facebook group, where hundreds of thousands of members are sharing stories of what they believe to be accounts of deaths from the covid vaccine. But instead of the word ‘vaccine’, they use the carrot symbol, probably to avoid censorship,” he explains.
“Use code words for everything”
One of these groups, which totals more than 250,000 members, even states it in its rules: “Use code words for everything. Never use the c word [covid] or the word v [vaccin] “.
Facebook claims to have deleted most of these accounts. “We have removed these groups for violating our policies and misinformation and will review any other similar content in accordance with this policy.” The social network says it is “working closely with health specialists and the English government to combat misinformation about the Covid-19 vaccine. »
The platform, which announced last year that it had deleted more than 20 million content making disinformation about the Covid-19 or the vaccine, is regularly singled out for not having made enough efforts at moderation. Internal documents, revealed by whistleblower Frances Haugen, had notably highlighted significant shortcomings in the company to fight against antivax publications.