How Netflix, Amazon and other tech giants are addressing anti-vaxxers: Today's talker

An additional 90 measles cases were reported across the nation last week, the biggest jump this year. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said 555 cases have been confirmed in 20 states in 2019.

Tech giants have a responsibility

By Brian Dickerson

Measles is a scary disease. But its current comeback tour is also a symptom of an even scarier epidemic: the proliferation of false or unreliable health information among consumers susceptible to unwarranted anxieties, dubious medical theories and unproven remedies.

Epidemiologists attribute the national measles outbreak to rising parental skepticism about the vaccine that had virtually eradicated the disease in the U.S. before rise of the anti-vaxxer movement. Much of that distrust can be traced to the discredited theories of a now-defrocked scientist named Andrew Wakefield — and a growing body of research credits social media and search titans like Facebook and Google, and streaming video providers like Amazon and Netflix, for disseminating Wakefield's work long after legitimate scientists had debunked it.

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Other internet-fueled "misinfodemics" have been implicated in accelerating the spread of Ebola in west Africa and tooth decay in rural Australia, where conspiracy theories about fluoridation abound.

"Vaxxed: From Cover-up to Catastrophe," a 2016 documentary Wakefield directed, was still being distributed by Amazon Prime Video, Netflix and other streaming services until this year, when distributors finally yielded to objections raised by doctors' groups, public health advocates and congressional critics.

Amazon pulled "Vaxxed" and at least four other anti-vaccination videos from its Prime Video line-up last month after Rep. Adam Schiff, D-Calif., fired off a letter warning Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos that his company might be abetting a public health crisis.

"The algorithms which power social media platforms and Amazon's recommendations are not designed to distinguish quality information from misinformation or misleading information and, as a result, harmful anti-vaccine messages have been able to thrive and spread," Schiff wrote.

Netflix and Hulu have also eliminated anti-vaxxer videos from their line-ups, although it's unclear when or why they chose to do so.

Like many journalists, I have a reflexive distaste for anything that smacks of censorship. Why fuel the paranoia of conspiracy theorists if you can allay their anxieties with peer-reviewed science?

That's what Google has tried to do by deploying human evaluators to scrutinize the trustworthiness of what it calls YMYL websites — that is, those that endeavor to advise users in making decisions about purchase and investments (Your Money) or health care (Your Life). Revised guidelines the search-engine company distributed to website reviewers last summer prioritize information sources whose authority and expertise is recognized by peers in industry and academia.

In a similar effort to provide more context about news shared on its site, Facebook has augmented the data users see when they click on the "Information" icon that appears prominently in many posts. Besides providing third-party descriptions of the website that originally published the news and related articles from the same publisher, the expanded features shows how often the information has been shared and which of your Facebook friends is sharing it. Other things being equal, you might scrutinize a health study posted by your teenage neighbor more skeptically than one posted by practicing pediatricians from three different hospital groups.

Streaming companies that purport to offer users a curated selection of entertainment and news have an added obligation to impose filters more exacting than the algorithms showcasing what other subscribers are "watching now."

"This isn't the government censoring what its citizens can see or read," Kelly McBride, who chairs the Center for Ethics and Leadership at the Poynter Institute, points out. "These are private platforms saying they've chosen not to amplify bad information, which is a perfectly legitimate business decision."

Content providers like Amazon and Netflix don't just have the right to reject pseudo-science peddled by charlatans; they have a moral duty to do so, one that can't be mitigated by the fact that a bogus documentary is trending. 

They shouldn't be excused from accountability just because the cuts they offer are especially popular with their customers.

Brian Dickerson is the editorial page editor at the Detroit Free Press, where his full column first appeared. You can follow him on Twitter: @BRIANDDICKERSON.

What others are saying

Henrietta H. Fore and Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus,  CNN.com: "Harmful content has proliferated on digital channels, amplified by algorithms that reward controversy and clicks, and exploited by anti-vaccine activists to sow mistrust. Scientists, medics and health advocates have even been harassed for sharing factual health information. In addition, unproven vaccine 'alternatives' are being heavily marketed for financial gain and entirely unscientific studies virally reproduced — often within echo chambers, created by closed groups and selective news feeds, where they are difficult to refute."

Joe Lieberman and Tom Ridge,  USA TODAY: "This reemergence of measles teaches us two things. First, our public health system needs additional resources if it is to control the occurrence and spread of disease throughout the nation. Second, since local governments — including New York City — are having to spend their limited public health resources to contain diseases like measles, they will not be sufficiently prepared for large-scale biological events such as a bioterrorist attack or an infectious disease pandemic."

Bruce Y. Lee,  Forbes: " 'Vaccine hesitancy' making the World Health Organization's list (of '10 threats to global health in 2019') and measles outbreaks also means that the public health world needs to change how it is dealing with the pseudoscience anti-vaccination propaganda that's been spreading. The anti-vaccination movement is not just some concerned parents or people interested in having a conversation. Otherwise, there would be more of a push to bolster the funding and resources of the Food and Drug Administration, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and the National Institutes of Health so that more monitoring can be done and more studies can be conducted."

What our readers are saying

We should quarantine every child whose parents have chosen to not vaccinate them. They are only incubating and spreading infectious diseases.

— Mikey Baldwi

Parents who refuse to vaccinate their children not only put their own children at risk but other children, as well. I'm sure these parents believe that they know more than doctors and scientists, but I hope their children don't have to pay too heavy a price for their parents' arrogance and stupidity.

— Hari Seldon

What I love most about the story of the teen who decided to get vaccinated after he learned he wasn't is that he did his research, and made an informed choice based on scientific facts. A very mature young man.

— Michelle Kadelski Dorgan

If people who are unvaccinated infect someone with a compromised immune system who cannot get vaccinated, sue them (or their parents in the case of children). No sympathy from me.

— Frank Snyder

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