Even before the coronavirus arrived to turn life upside down and trigger a global infodemic, social media platforms were under growing pressure to curb the spread of misinformation.
Last year, Facebook cofounder and chief executive Mark Zuckerberg called for new rules to address “harmful content, election integrity, privacy and data portability”.
Now, amid a rapidly evolving pandemic, when more people than ever are using social media for news and information, it is more crucial than ever that people can trust this content.
Digital platforms are now taking more steps to tackle misinformation about COVID-19 on their services. In a joint statement, Facebook, Google, LinkedIn, Microsoft, Reddit, Twitter, and YouTube have pledged to work together to combat misinformation.
Facebook has traditionally taken a less proactive approach to countering misinformation. A commitment to protecting free expression has led the platform to allow misinformation in political advertising.
More recently, however, Facebook’s spam filter inadvertently marked legitimate news information about COVID-19 as spam. While Facebook has since fixed ..
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