The HSE has flagged more than 3,000 posts on social media with tech companies for posting misinformation about the Covid-19 pandemic and vaccination.
The health services have continued to make reports this year at a rate of around 200 per month, with most of the highlighted activity on Twitter.
Figures from the HSE show how 1,194 reports were made in the first six months of the year, with 227 posts reported in June of this year.
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An analysis of a sample month of reports from February shows that every one of the reported posts had been made on Twitter.
Posts by conspiracy theorists like Robert F Kennedy Junior and the conservative commentator Candace Owens were among the tweets flagged by the HSE, according to the data.
A tweet by the Irish Freedom Party was also reported to Twitter, as were posts from dozens of other smaller accounts – some of which have been since been suspended.
Of 158 posts flagged in February, 96 of them currently remain in place while 53 of them were made by accounts that have since been suspended.
There were another six tweets that had been deleted and three posts where the account involved in posting no longer exists.
There is not necessarily a link between the reports by the HSE and the deletion or suspension of accounts as the user may have posted something else that led to the removal of tweets, or the account.
Most of the reported posts related to Covid-19 vaccination, with one particularly virulent conspiracy linking it to the development of HIV/AIDS.
There was also a steady diet of tweets suggesting vaccine injury or death were being underreported or suppressed by government, or posts that massively exaggerated the levels of such incidents.
There was one tweet reported that questioned government policy on the removal of mask mandates in indoor settings.
It said Covid-19 remained dangerous and that indoor unmasked socialising remained a risk saying the government was “grossly negligent”.
A small number of relatively benign tweets – which did not appear to contain obvious misinformation - also ended up being flagged by the HSE.
In the period since the health services first began keeping a log of such reports, just over 3,060 social media posts have been reported.
The highest number of reports were made in March and April of last year when 439 and 306 posts were flagged respectively.
There was a sharp fall in reporting from May to July last year as the HSE grappled with the after-effects of the cyber-attack that crippled some of its computer systems.
The HSE said they had ongoing relationships with social networks and had been working closely with them since the pandemic began.
An information note said: “[We] report posts that we believe are potentially harmful to people’s health or contain deliberate misinformation in relation to [a] range of health topics. It is then up to the platform to decide what action they take.
“The social networks have their own community policies that enable them to evaluate if a post should be removed from their platform or action taken on the account that’s posted.”
A spokesperson added that people should get their information from reputable sources and follow public health advice available on hse.ie and gov.ie.
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