Facebook is taking further steps to reduce the spread of false medical information on its pages and minimise the spruiking of dodgy health products.
The social media giant claims to have changed its ranking algorithm to decrease the visibility of content that contains “sensational or misleading” health information.
According to a post on Facebook’s official blog site, two changes in its rankings system were made in June to target inaccurate or ‘spammy’ content relating to health, nutrition and fitness issues.
“For the first update, we consider if a post about health exaggerates or misleads — for example, making a sensational claim about a miracle cure,” the company said.
“For the second update, we consider if a post promotes a product or service based on a health-related claim — for example, promoting a medication or pill claiming to help you lose weight.”
Facebook stressed that it won’t be blocking or removing any low-quality content based on health claims, but would instead be reducing distribution and featuring it lower down on news feeds.
It said it will identify misleading and promotional health content by looking for key phrases and ranking these posts lower on its rankings.