Mark Zuckerberg on Thursday said Facebook would start notifying users who had engaged with false posts about COVID-19 which could cause physical damage, such as drinking bleach to cure the virus.
It was gathered that, Facebook had been battling to control large volumes of misinformation such as posts that say physical distancing will not curb the disease, whilst working to connect people with accurate information on.
It was revealed that, Facebook has earlier taken down hundreds of thousands of false posts that could be harmful, and last month displayed warnings on another 40 million dubious posts related to the virus.
Zuckerberg said,
“We will also soon begin showing messages in News Feed to people who previously engaged with harmful misinformation related to COVID-19 that we’ve since removed, connecting them with accurate information."
This includes people who had liked, reacted or commented on the posts.
The messages according to Facebook will start appearing in the coming weeks, and will direct people to myths about the virus debunked by the World Health Organisation.
In the same vein, the European Commissioner for Values and Transparency, Vera Jourova, welcomed the latest measures but said more still needed to be done.
In her words:
“We will need more transparency and better access to data for researchers to fully verify the scope and impact of false content.
“And also to be able to assess Facebook’s actions from the perspectives of both public health and fundamental rights,”
“We must focus not only on platforms, but on all fronts, including better monitoring and detection, engaging civil society and improving the cooperation between member states."
It should be noted that, coronavirus pandemic has killed more than 136,000 people globally and infected more than 2 million.
(NAN)
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