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Facebook sold ads promoting anti-vaccine messages

One ad promoted T-shirt with ‘Proudly Unpoisoned’ message

FILE - This July 16, 2013 file photo shows a sign at Facebook headquarters in Menlo Park, Calif. Beginning Thursday, Aug. 13, 2020. A disinformation network with ties to China used hundreds of fake social media accounts including one belonging to a fictitious Swiss biologist to spread an unfounded claim that the U.S. pressured scientists to blame China for the coronavirus, Facebook said Wednesday, Dec. 1, 2021. (AP Photo/Ben Margot, File) (Ben Margot, Copyright 2018 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.)

Facebook has reportedly made hundreds of thousands of dollars selling ads that promote anti-vaccine messages and compare America’s COVID-19 response to Nazi Germany.

In one ad, Facebook promoted a sweater emblazoned with the words “I’m originally from America but I currently reside in 1941 Germany.”

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Another ad promoted a T-shirt that read “Proudly Unpoisoned” next to an image of a syringe.

Despite Fakebook’s parent company Meta saying these ads went against their vaccine misinformation policies, they still ran on the platform.

One researcher who tracks advertising on Facebook says the company does not manually review all of the ads it sells, meaning some slip through its detection systems.

Publicly, Facebook has been encouraging Americans to get vaccinated.