With the coronavirus keeps on spreading, and the discussion keeps spreading through the world, both Twitter & Facebook have announced that they have taken measures on their respective platforms by taking measures towards providing their users with the accurate information and the control the conversation who spread the wrong information, like fear among the users.
Twitter mentioned that there have been more than 15 million tweets about the coronavirus outbreak already, and people keep on discussing it. Though twitter mentioned they haven’t seen any “significant coordinated attempts to spread disinformation at scale about this issue“, they have assigned resources “to ensure that trends, search, and other common areas of the service are protected from malicious behaviors.”
“As ever, those who engage in these practices will be removed from our service. We do not permit platform manipulation and we encourage people to think before sharing or engaging in deliberate attempts to undermine the public conversation.”
In addition to this, Twitter also added a new search prompt that’ll help users who do a search for coronavirus to get accurate information on the outbreak.
Twitter has also removed all the auto-suggest results that appear when a user enters a search term, which might direct the users to a source that might not be accurate or contains misinformation. They’ve also been working with official health groups to provide more support regarding this.
Over on Facebook, they’ve also taken some similar measures, with fact-checking teams monitoring conversations related to coronavirus & flagging posts containing misinformation.
“Our global network of third-party fact-checkers are continuing their work reviewing content and debunking false claims that are spreading related to the coronavirus. When they rate information as false, we limit its spread on Facebook and Instagram and show people accurate information from these partners. We also send notifications to people who already shared or are trying to share this content to alert them that it’s been fact-checked.“
Facebook also mentioned they’ll be removing posts that contains false claims or conspiracy theories as they are believed to harm the people who might read and trust them.
In addition, the platform will also be adding similar search query prompts to Twitter, based on those who enter queries related to the outbreak.
“When people search for information related to the virus on Facebook or tap a related hashtag on Instagram, we will return a dedicated information module with credible information.”
