Facebook will start steering users who interact with coronavirus misinformation to WHO
Facebook will begin to alert users after they’ve been exposed to misinformation about the
coronavirus, the company announced Thursday, the latest in a series of actions meant to curtail the spread of wrong or misleading claims related to the pandemic.
Users who have liked, commented on or reacted to coronavirus misinformation that has been flagged as “harmful” by Facebook and removed will now be directed to
a website debunking coronavirus myths from the World Health Organization.
The announcement came
in a blog post written by Guy Rosen, Facebook's vice president of integrity.
“We want to connect people who may have interacted with harmful misinformation about the virus with the truth from authoritative sources in case they see or hear these claims again off of Facebook,” Rosen wrote.
The new alert will not identify the specific post containing harmful misinformation, according to a Facebook spokesperson, who said the company was relying on research that shows repeated exposure — even in fact checks — can sometimes reinforce misinformed beliefs.
The move by Facebook is just the most recent step in an aggressive and coordinated response by it and other tech companies to promote facts and guidance from reputable sources about the spread of the coronavirus and combat the glut of false information that the WHO
in February warned had become a “massive infodemic.”
But Facebook and other tech platforms have still been struggling to limit the spread of coronavirus-related misinformation.
In March, Facebook issued warnings on about 40 million posts deemed false by Facebook’s fact-checking partners, according to Rosen, adding that users who saw those warning labels rarely clicked through to the original content. Facebook has removed hundreds of thousands of posts with misinformation that “could lead to imminent physical harm,” Rosen said.
