Facebook will soon connect people who’ve engaged with false, misleading, or totally dogshit coronavirus (COVID-19) posts with more accurate information, according to founder Mark Zuckerberg.
In a post last night, Zuckerberg said the next phase in the social media platform’s battle against COVID-19 misinformation involves pumping verified information into the News Feeds of folks who have clicked on, liked, or scrolled through dicey content later removed by Facebook.
Expect those alerts to roll out soon.
The Zuck says Facebook has already slapped warning labels on some 40 million pieces of content in March alone, with a focus on content which could fuck someone up, pronto:
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.
The company had a big job on its hands, as some celebrities are still using their platforms to broadcast all manner of potentially harmful content.
While Zuck & Co. have slapped links to its COVID-19 information centre all across the shop, the Facebook-owned chat app WhatsApp has also been forced to cut down on message forwarding limits, in an attempt to stop misinformation spreading through personal chats.
Given the fact Facebook now boasts over 2.3 billion users worldwide, you’d hope they can get the message across — and that the users who need solid information the most have just enough trust in the company to believe real COVID-19 advice.
