Groups posting fake news about the Covid vaccine are officially banned on Facebook. But the members of a group managed to avoid censorship thanks to an original method: they used the carrot emoji to avoid using the word “vaccine”.
It may seem absurd, but the technique worked for a while: on Facebook, an anti-vaccine group managed to escape censorship thanks to a method that was, to say the least, original. To avoid detection by moderation bots and algorithms, members did not use the words ” vaccines », « needle ” Where ” dose “.
Instead, they used the carrot emoji.
A technique that has paid off
It was researcher Marc Owen Jones who made this surprising discovery, spotted by Gizmodo. As he explained on Twitter on September 11, the researcher was “ invited to a Facebook group of several hundred thousand members, in which they share stories that allegedly prove that the Covid vaccine killed people they knowt. Instead of the word vaccine, they use the carrot emoji, apparently to avoid censorship. Very strange “.
The rules of the group were clear: it was forbidden to use terms like vaccine, covid and booster dose, in order to avoid censorship. ” It’s important to use code names reads a screenshot of the group rules, posted by Marc Owen Jones. ” To date, the carrot emoji has yet to be spotted by moderation AI “, welcomed the moderator.
The screenshots that the researcher shared show unverifiable stories, but with extreme and medically dubious statements. ” My 57-year-old sister was rushed to hospital with breathing problems “, can we see in one of the screenshots. ” She has clots in her lungs and had to be put on treatment. She has clots in her heart too. She’s still alive, but she’s gonna have to take medicine for a long time “. In another post, a member explains that his friend’s parents both died suddenly a few days after receiving their second dose of the vaccine.
Even more absurdly, the members of the group also used the emoji representing a glass of whiskey to replace the term ” vaccine dose “, which is said “ shot in English, like a shot of alcohol. Marc Owen Jones has shared an image, in which a person explains that a baby would have been born without a skeleton because of the vaccine.
The technique, strange as it may seem, has nevertheless worked. The group managed to avoid Facebook moderation, which bans groups sharing fake news about vaccines, for months.
Since the discovery of Marc Owen Jones, however, the group has been removed — but the anti-vaxxers may continue to use this carrot or whiskey emoji technique for some time.