Facebook has removed all the misleading advertisements related to HIV prevention medicines from its online platform. The social media platform has taken the decision following requests from LGBTQ advocacy groups. Since the start of December month, they were making efforts to make Facebook realize the wrong information contained in the HIV advertisements. Through an open letter written to Facebook, the advocacy groups tried to highlight the ads as the source for spreading the misinformation and introducing dangers to the lives of common people.
Various medical studies suggest that drugs such as Truvada are safe to use but the information of ads present on the Facebook platform declared the drugs as unsafe. After the requests from law firms, the LGBTQ advocacy groups decided to raise their ads present on Facebook because they highlight the harmful effects of using such HIV prevention drugs.
However, after successfully removing ads from its platform, Facebook announced that the ads on its platform were misleading. In its released statement it said, “after a review, our independent fact-checking partners have determined some of these ads in question mislead people about the effects of Truvada. As a result, we have rejected the ads and they can no longer run on Facebook.”
According to the US Center for Disease Control and Prevention, PrEP (Pre-Exposure Prophylaxis) drugs are completely safe to use and capable of preventing HIV from sex and injection drug use. Since December, many health and LGBTQ groups were mounting pressure on Facebook to remove the ads to stop the spread of misleading information through its platform.