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(Bloomberg) -- Facebook Inc. will begin removing fake claims and conspiracy theories about the coronavirus, stepping up efforts to fight the spread of misinformation about a viral outbreak that’s killed more than 200.
The spread of the virus, which has been declared a global emergency by the World Health Organization, is the latest test of social networks’ ability to rein in false and dangerous claims. Facebook cited the drinking of bleach as one spurious cure claim that’s been circulating, saying it will “start to remove content with false claims or conspiracy theories that have been flagged by leading global health organizations and local health authorities that could cause harm to people who believe them.”
The company has an existing policy of removing content deemed a threat to users’ physical harm, and has used that policy in the past to remove vaccine-related misinformation, though in rare cases.
The novel coronavirus is taking on a life of its own on the internet, once again putting U.S.-based social media companies on the defensive about their efforts to curb the spread of false information. Researchers and journalists have documented a growing number of cases of misinformation about the virus, ranging from racist explanations for the disease’s origin to false claims about miracle cures.
Aside from expanding its removal policy, Facebook is doing its usual fact-checking with independent third-party partners, notifying users who may have shared inaccurate prevention tips and disseminating verified advice. The company is “conducting proactive sweeps to find and remove as much of” the misleading content as it can, wrote Kang-Xing Jin, its head of health, and it will block or restrict hashtags on Instagram that may be used to spread falsehoods.
WHO Declares Coronavirus Outbreak a Global Emergency (Video)
Facebook is putting prompts and modules in its News Feed, designed to steer users to accurate information, and it is also taking guidance from the WHO. “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,” Jin wrote. Free advertising credits have been provided to health organizations looking to run coronavirus education campaigns on Facebook and Instagram.
The third prong to Facebook’s response is a partnership with Harvard University’s School of Public Health and Taiwan’s National Tsing Hua University, which the company is providing with “aggregated and anonymized mobility data and high resolution population density maps to help inform their forecasting models.” The company may expand its academic partners, according to Jin, though he warned that “not all of these steps are fully in place” and the rollout of all of Facebook’s measures will take time.