A new report from the Center for Countering Digital Hate finds that “just 12 anti-vaxxers are responsible for nearly two-thirds of the anti-vaccine content circulating on social media platforms.” The so-called “disinformation dozen” remain prominent figures on platforms like Facebook and Twitter, despite repeatedly violating their terms of service, according to the center.

“Living in public view on the internet is a small group of individuals who lack the proper medical expertise and have their own pockets to line, who are abusing social media platforms to misrepresent the threat of COVID and spreading misinformation about vaccine safety,” the statement read. report of the nonprofit organization, which works to disrupt “the spread of digital hate and misinformation.”

The center identified the dozen “because they have a large number of followers, produce high volumes of anti-vaccine content, or have seen rapid growth in their social media accounts over the past two months.” Among them are Robert F. Kennedy Jr.who leads an anti-vaccine group; Dr. Joseph Mercola, who made his fortune selling dietary supplements as alternatives to vaccines; and Ty and Charlene Bollinger, founders of “The Truth About Cancer.”

“It’s not just individuals… it’s individuals who have large companies behind them that they run themselves, who are spreading our disinformation in an attempt to persuade people not to follow clinical advice and “to buy their fake cures instead, or to buy access to information that they claim is the truth about the coronavirus and about vaccines,” Imran Ahmed, founder and CEO of the Center for Countering Digital Hate, told CBSN on Wednesday. .

The center analyzed more than 812,000 vaccine-related Facebook and Twitter posts shared between February 1 and March 16 of this year. Sixty-five percent of anti-vaccine messages came from one of 12 “misinformation dozen.”

“Anti-vaccine activists on Facebook, YouTube, Instagram and Twitter reach more than 59 million followers, making them the largest and most important social media platforms for anti-vaccines,” according to the report. The center also found that these accounts specifically target Black Americans, who have been less likely to get vaccinated so far.

The organization called on Facebook, Instagram, YouTube and Twitter to remove the “dozen misinformation” as well as the organizations they are linked to. Three of the 12 have been completely removed from at least one platform, but none have been removed from all of them.

“Facebook, Google, and Twitter have policies in place to prevent the spread of misinformation about vaccines; but to date, all have failed to implement these policies satisfactorily,” the report reads. . “All have been particularly ineffective at removing harmful and dangerous misinformation about coronavirus vaccines, although the scale of misinformation on Facebook, and therefore the impact of their failure, is greater.”

A Twitter spokesperson told CBS News it removed 22,400 tweets as part of its “misleading information policy” about COVID-19 and “disputed” nearly 12 million accounts. Dani Lever, a Facebook spokesperson, said the company has removed more than 2 million pieces of content since February.

Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg told lawmakers on the House Energy and Commerce Committee during a hearing Thursday that its platform divides misinformation into categories, the most serious being that which could cause “imminent physical harm”. False claims about the coronavirus or its vaccines, he said, could lead to someone getting sick, and therefore would be deleted.

“It’s the overall approach that we have…that kind of explains some of the differences between some of the different questions and how we approach them,” Zuckerberg said.

This “broad approach” has been criticized by a group of 12 state attorneys general who urged Facebook and Twitter to “take immediate action” to crack down on “anti-vaccine” lies online, as part of ongoing efforts to vaccinate the public against COVID-19.

In a letter According to Zuckerberg and Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey, on Wednesday, attorneys general urged social media giants to “identify and enforce” the companies’ terms of service fully to combat misinformation and misinformation about vaccines.

“A small group of individuals are using your platforms to downplay the dangers of COVID-19 and spread misinformation about vaccine safety,” the group said, citing the CCDH report. “These individuals lack medical expertise and are often motivated by financial interests.”

In addition to removing the dozen platforms, the center also recommends that platforms establish a clear threshold for enforcement actions, display corrective messages to users exposed to misinformation, add warning screens when users click on links to disinformation sites, to institute an accountability API (application programming interface). and ban private and secret anti-vaccine Facebook groups.

“(Their) content has the potential to harm human life,” Ahmed told CBSN. “Not just the individuals themselves, but, more cruelly, the people they love and our communities as a whole.”

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