Why We Should be Worried About Facebook Censorship

The first time one of our posts — the accompanying picture, actually — got censored by Facebook, I was surprised. The second time, I began to worry. Here’s a company with massive reach and influence making decisions about what can and can’t be boosted to reach a larger audience based on what seems to be flawed or at the very least flimsy rationales. Here’s what happened.

Your photo is “shocking”

In August, we published an article on reducing malpractice risk related to vaccinations on The Doctor Weighs In (TDWI). It is titled, Boost Patient Safety: How to Reduce Risks with Vaccinations and was written by Debbie Hill, RN, MBA, CPHRM and Lisa McCorkle, MSN, CPHRM, Patient Safety Risk Managers at The Doctors Company, the largest physician-owned medical malpractice insurer in the country. The article provides guidance to physicians on how to reduce risks related to vaccinations. Examples of the suggestions are assigning someone in the practice to be sure FDA/CDC vaccination schedules are up-to-date and monitoring the storage and handling of the vaccines in the office. We bought a photo of a child getting a vaccine from one of the commercial stock photo companies. Here’s the photo: