I’m going to stick my neck out and say that Facebook made the right call here.
The problem isn’t the content, but rather the audience, and how they react to said content.
People generally don’t read articles - particularly lengthy articles, particularly articles written by academia for academia - they read the headline, perhaps the lead, and then go post and spread their interpretation of the information.
The BMJ have a reputation as being a reputable source of information.
Take these two together, and you have a wavefront of posts claiming that the BMJ agrees that vaccines are dangerous and poorly tested, and the story isn’t what the article holds, it isn’t nuanced, it isn’t moderate, it’s “look, this proves that bill gates wants a microchip in you, and the BMJ confirms it!”.
So, you have a difficult choice. Do you allow a factual article and the reputation of the BMJ to be used as fodder for anti-vaxxer sentiment, or do you try to dampen the squib and decrease the propagation of the distorted interpretations?
If anything, there should perhaps be a middle road, where in order to share or comment on an article, you have to answer a series of questions about what the article says. This would dampen the network effect, and would hopefully ensure that people are actually forced to read the content they’re sharing, rather than relying on a headline and a strapline interpretation added by the sharer.
The problem isn’t the content, but rather the audience, and how they react to said content.
People generally don’t read articles - particularly lengthy articles, particularly articles written by academia for academia - they read the headline, perhaps the lead, and then go post and spread their interpretation of the information.
The BMJ have a reputation as being a reputable source of information.
Take these two together, and you have a wavefront of posts claiming that the BMJ agrees that vaccines are dangerous and poorly tested, and the story isn’t what the article holds, it isn’t nuanced, it isn’t moderate, it’s “look, this proves that bill gates wants a microchip in you, and the BMJ confirms it!”.
So, you have a difficult choice. Do you allow a factual article and the reputation of the BMJ to be used as fodder for anti-vaxxer sentiment, or do you try to dampen the squib and decrease the propagation of the distorted interpretations?
If anything, there should perhaps be a middle road, where in order to share or comment on an article, you have to answer a series of questions about what the article says. This would dampen the network effect, and would hopefully ensure that people are actually forced to read the content they’re sharing, rather than relying on a headline and a strapline interpretation added by the sharer.