Facebook to tell millions of users they’ve seen ‘fake news’ about coronavirus

Will "Fox News" be scrubbed?

Mod: There is no indication in the Politico article if fake news emanating from the Trump White House will be included in the scrub.

Facebook to tell millions of users they’ve seen ‘fake news’ about coronavirus (Politicolink): Millions of Facebook users will soon be told if they saw online posts containing misinformation about the coronavirus pandemic after the social networking giant announced Thursday its latest plans to contain the spread of rumors, half truths and lies connected to the public health crisis.

See Snopes articlehere.

The move, which will start over the next three weeks, represents a major step by Facebook— an acknowledgment that its efforts to scrub the platform of falsehoods related to the coronavirus have not been sufficient to stop millions of people sharing, liking and engaging with misinformation.

"Through this crisis, one of my top priorities is making sure that you see accurate and authoritative information across all of our apps,"Mark Zuckerberg, the company's chief executive, wrote on his Facebook page. The decision, in part, comes after the campaign group Avaaz discovered that over 40 percent of the coronavirus-related misinformation it found on Facebook— which had already been debunked by fact-checking organizations working with the tech giant — remained on the platform despite the company being told by these organizations that the social media posts were false.

In total, Avaaz said that these fake social media posts — everything from advice about bogus medical remedies for the virus to claims that minority groups were less susceptible to infection — had been shared, collectively, 1.7 million times on Facebook in six languages.

"Facebook, given its scale, is the epicenter for misinformation,"Fadi Quran, Avaaz's campaign director, told POLITICO, adding that the company's efforts to combat the problem had steadily improved since the social network announced it would do all it could to stop the spread of such life-threatening falsehoods.

Mod: Much more of interest at the link.

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