Pattern Matching
The Flaw in Facebook’s Vaccine Plan
The company’s campaign to encourage vaccination is fighting against the dynamics of its own platform.
In the most idealistic view of Facebook’s mission, this is the sort of moment it was built for.
With Covid-19 killing thousands of people every day, humanity is in a race to vaccinate enough of the global population to curb the pandemic — ideally before it evolves in ways that make it even harder to contain. One obstacle, of course, is vaccine availability. But another is “vaccine hesitancy:” people afraid or unwilling to get vaccinated when they have the chance.
Facebook has built a network of nearly 3 billion people across its platforms, and has the ability to influence the information they receive about vaccines, including how and where to get them. We know that Facebook can unilaterally make people happier or sadder, or increase voter turnout when it wants to. It stands to reason that it can also affect vaccination rates. In other words, Facebook would seem to have the power, at least in theory, to help the world’s governments and scientists win this race.
Facebook is generally reluctant to take explicit moral stands or throw the weight of its products behind a given agenda. It wants…
