(CNN Business) Facebook on Wednesday announced that it had taken action against the so-called "disinformation dozen," one month after the White House singled out the twelve people and argued that they were responsible for a majority of coronavirus misinformation. In making the announcement, Monika Bickert, vice president of content policy at Facebook, pushed back against the narrative that the twelve accounts were primarily responsible for the spread of vaccine misinformation, writing that focusing on them "misses the forest for the trees." But, Bickert said, "Any amount of COVID-19 vaccine misinformation that violates our policies is too much by our standards — and we have removed over three dozen Pages, groups and Facebook or Instagram accounts linked to these 12 people, including at least one linked to each of the 12 people, for violating our policies." Bickert added that Facebook had "also imposed penalties on nearly two dozen additional Pages, groups or accounts linked to these 12 people" and "applied penalties to some of their website domains." Facebook FB The "disinformation dozen" was initially identified in March by the nonprofit Center for Countering Digital Hate which called onto shut down pages operated by those people.

Source: CNN August 19, 2021 00:18 UTC