GoFundMe Joins Big Tech Ban on Anti-Vaccination Content

Fundraising site GoFundMe has joined Facebook, Instagram, Amazon, YouTube, and Pinterest in banning anti-vaccination content.

In a statement to the Daily Beast, GoFundMe spokesman Bobby Whithorne declared, “Campaigns raising money to promote misinformation about vaccines violate GoFundMe’s terms of service and will be removed from the platform… We are conducting a thorough review and will remove any campaigns currently on the platform.”

Last week, Facebook-owned platform Instagram announced a ban on anti-vaccination hashtags.

“As part of our work to address health-related misinformation on Instagram, we’re looking at ways to minimize recommendations of this content and accounts that post it across Instagram — including in ‘Suggested For You’, Explore and hashtags,” stated an Instagram spokesman, adding that “short-term measures” would include blocking “known health-related misinformation including #vaccinescauseautism, #vaccinesarepoison, and #vaccinescauseids.”

Facebook also announced this month that it would stop promoting anti-vaccine groups and content in search results, and suppress them from newsfeeds, while YouTube has started to demonetize anti-vaccination videos.

Pinterest has also started to censor certain vaccine-related search results, and this month Amazon removed books from sale which promoted “vaccine misinformation.”