ROOT OF THE PROBLEM

Anti-Vaccine Geniuses Are Hiding Disinformation Posts With Carrot Emojis

The vegetable emoji was supposed to hide bogus medical lies from content moderation tools, but Facebook has apparently caught on.

Anti-vaxxers are using carrot emojis to avoid having their dangerous misinformation being taken down by social media platforms, according to the BBC. An investigation turned up several Facebook groups in which the vegetable was used in place of the word “vaccine” in order to dodge automated content moderation tools on the platform, as Facebook typically focuses on words rather than images. The groups allegedly included posts from people trading unverified stories of people being killed or injured by vaccines. Facebook’s parent company Meta removed groups using the subterfuge tactic when they were flagged by the BBC, but posts using the same strategy are allegedly still appearing on the platform.