Business Highlights: Facebook Vaccine Claims, Retailer Woes

Last spring, as false claims about vaccine safety threatened to undermine the worlds response to COVID19, researchers at Facebook found they could reduce vaccine misinformation by tweaking how vaccine posts show up on users newsfeeds. Yet despite evidence that it worked, Facebook took a full month to implement the changes at a pivotal time in the global vaccine rollout. Facebooks own documents also reveal how comments on posts are a hotbed for antivaccine messages. But when another researcher suggested disabling comments on vaccine posts, that idea was ignored. Those revelations were contained in disclosures by a former Facebook employeeturnedwhistleblower. Facebook says it has made considerable progress with downgrading vaccine misinformation in users feeds.