By Julia Carrie Wong, The Guardian, August 28, 2019
When Pinterest realized in 2018 that the search results for many health-related terms – such as “vaccines” or “cancer cure” – were polluted with non-scientific misinformation, the visual social media site took a radical step: it broke the search function for those terms. “If you’re looking for medical advice, please contact a healthcare provider,” a message on the otherwise blank page read.
On Wednesday, Pinterest announced a new step in its efforts to combat health misinformation on its platform: users will be able to search for 200 terms related to vaccines, but the results displayed will come from major public health organizations, including the World Health Organization (WHO), Centers for Disease Control, American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) and Vaccine Safety Net.
The platform will also bar advertisements, recommendations and comments on those pages.
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