‘Get The Facts’: Facebook to launch new feature to combat COVID-19 misinformation; will warn users
'In March, we displayed warnings on about 40 million posts related to Covid-19 based on 4,000 articles reviewed by independent fact-checkers. When people saw those warning labels, 95% of the time they did not go on to view the original content,' Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg wrote
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FollowBengaluru: Facebook will launch a new feature called “Get The Facts” to fight misinformation about coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic, CEO Mark Zuckerberg said.
On his Facebook page on Thursday (April 16), Zuckerberg said they had displayed warnings on about 40 million posts related to COVID-19 based on 4,000 articles.
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“In March, we displayed warnings on about 40 million posts related to Covid-19 based on 4,000 articles reviewed by independent fact-checkers. When people saw those warning labels, 95% of the time they did not go on to view the original content,” Zuckerberg wrote.
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On the new feature, “Get The Facts”, Zuckerberg explained, “We're also launching a new feature called Get The Facts, a section of our Covid-19 Information Center featuring articles written by independent fact-checking partners debunking misinformation about the coronavirus. 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.
“Through this crisis, one of my top priorities is making sure that you see accurate and authoritative information across all of our apps. I hope all of you are staying safe, healthy and informed.”
He said Facebook and Instagram are working towards reducing misinformation on COVID-19.
“On Facebook and Instagram, we’ve now directed more than 2 billion people to authoritative health resources via our Covid-19 Information Center and educational pop-ups, with more than 350 million people clicking through to learn more.
“We’re also continuing our efforts to reduce misinformation. Since the beginning of March, we’ve expanded our fact-checking coverage to more than a dozen new countries and now work with over 60 fact-checking organizations that review content in more than 50 languages.”
Zuckerberg warned that any content which contains “harmful information” would be taken down. “If a piece of content contains harmful misinformation that could lead to imminent physical harm, then we'll take it down. We’ve taken down hundreds of thousands of pieces of misinformation related to Covid-19, including theories like drinking bleach cures the virus or that physical distancing is ineffective at preventing the disease from spreading. For other misinformation, once it is rated false by fact-checkers, we reduce its distribution, apply warning labels with more context and find duplicates.”
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