New Delhi [India], April 16 (ANI): In an attempt to reduce the spread of misinformation regarding the coronavirus, Facebook is launching a new feature called ‘Get The Facts’, said CEO Mark Zuckerberg on Thursday.
Zuckerberg posted a message on Facebook saying that the platform expanded its fact-checking coverage since March and it will take down the post from the platform if it contains misinformation.
“I want to share an update on the work we’re doing to connect people with accurate information and limit the spread of misinformation about 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,” Zuckerberg said in the message.
“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. If a piece of content contains harmful misinformation that could lead to imminent physical harm, then we’ll take it down,” he added.
The platform will also apply warning labels on the post once it is rated false by fact-checkers, Zuckerberg said.
“For other misinformation, once it is rated false by fact-checkers, we reduce its distribution, apply warning labels with more context and find duplicates. 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,” the message read.
“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,” it added. (ANI)
— ANI