• While Facebook introduced a policy in March aimed at combating vaccine misinformation on its platforms, anti-vaxx memes continue to thrive on Instagram.
  • Instagram hashtags, with anywhere from hundreds to thousands of posts, include “#antivaxx,” “vaccineskill,” #vaccinerelatedinfertility,” and “#vaccines” – which includes anti-vaxx content.
  • Peter Hotez, dean of the National School of Tropical Medicine at Baylor College of Medicine, described memes as one of the anti-vax movement’s “weapons of choice.”
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Despite efforts by Facebook and Instagram to better address vaccine misinformation on its platforms, anti-vaccine memes and content continues to thrive online.

Last month, The Atlantic’s Taylor Lorenz wrote about conspiracy theories and anti-vaxx content on Instagram. “Instagram is teeming with these conspiracy theories, viral misinformation, and extremist memes, all daisy-chained together via a network of accounts with incredible algorithmic reach and millions of collective followers,” Lorenz wrote.

“Three of the top 12 Instagram posts featuring the hashtag #vaccines were promoting anti-vaccine messages – after Facebook announced last week that it would diminish the reach of anti-vax information on Facebook and Instagram,” Lorenz added.

That policy, introduced by Facebook, Instagram’s parent company, in March, aimed to combat vaccine misinformation through a series of steps, such as reducing the ranking of groups and pages that spread misinformation about vaccines in News Feed and Search, rejecting ads that include misinformation about vaccines, and not recommending content that contains misinformation about vaccines on Instagram Explore or hashtag pages.

Read more: Facebook plans to tackle anti-vaccine misinformation by rejecting false ads and de-ranking harmful pages

Over a month later, however, not much has changed on Instagram, according to an INSIDER review of public posts and hashtags. While an Instagram spokesperson told told CNN Business in March that the platform would block hashtags such as "#vaccinescauseautism," "#vaccinesarepoison," and "#vaccinescauseaids," similar hashtags - like "#vaccinesarepoisoned," and "#vaccinescauseautismreadthestudies" - continue to persist on Instagram.

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Other Instagram hashtags still available on the platform, and with anywhere from hundreds to thousands of posts, include "#antivaxx," "vaccineskill," #vaccinerelatedinfertility," and "#vaccines" - which includes anti-vax content. Similar to Lorenz's March findings, three of the top 12 Instagram posts with the hashtag "#vaccines" include anti-vax messaging. One post, with almost 900 likes, was published two days ago by the National Vaccine Information Center, one of the oldest and most well-established anti-vaxx groups in the country.

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Foto: sourceInstagram

Barbara Loe Fisher, co-founder and president of NVIC, previously told INSIDER that "there is no question there are more families than ever involved now," in the anti-vaxx movement. In an emailed statement, Fisher said that "while NVIC since 2008 has posted information on social media platforms, such as Facebook, Twitter and Instagram, we are not dependent upon those platforms to fulfill our mission of preventing vaccine injuries and deaths through public education"

Peter Hotez, dean of the National School of Tropical Medicine at Baylor College of Medicine, described memes as one of the anti-vaxx movement's "weapons of choice," in an email to INSIDER.

Facebook, the parent company of Instagram, did not immediately respond to a request for comment on anti-vaxx memes on the platform, and why such content continues to persist despite its policy to better address anti-vaxx misinformation.

On Monday, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention found that the numbers of measles cases in the US has risen to a total of 704 cases across 22 states - the greatest number of cases reported in the US since 1994, and since the disease was declared eliminated in 2000.