Facebook Is Finally Doing Something Useful To Protect Us From CO.VID-19 Fake News

Earlier this week, Facebook announced that it will be giving users warnings that highlight facts about the CO.VID-19 pandemic. The social giant made this move after accusation of its failure in fighting the spread of conspiracy theories around the disease. Facebook has been publishing fact-checking articles about the pandemic by partnering with media organizations such as Agence France-Presses.

Mark Zuckerberg said that the tech giant will also start showing messages to those engaged with misinformation around CO.VID-19 and connecting them to accurate info. Also, the messages will in a language relevant to respective users, pointing them to reliable information sources such as WHO.

Meanwhile, just in March, the social giant removed 40 million CO.VID-19 posts following reviews from independent fact-checkers like AFP. Zuckerberg said:

“When people saw those warning labels, 95 percent of the time they did not go on to view the original content.”

There’s another program called Get The Facts that will highlight CO.VID-19 articles on Facebook which are written by fact-checking partners.

One of the recent articles by AFP countered the idea of using garlic as an effective treatment for CO.VID-19 while another article refuted theories about the virus spread through 5G telecommunications.

According to the social giant, on Instagram and Facebook, there are over 350 million users that have clicked through to a reliable information center since the service was launched in March.

At the same time, Facebook has limited how many times a user can forward a message on WhatsApp as part of its attempts to tackle the spread of fake news and misinformation.

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