Facebook Helps People To Fight Misinformation Related To COVID-19

Now more than ever we are working to connect people to accurate sources, and tackle misinformation — especially about COVID-19. We have made significant investments to remove accounts and content that violate our Community Standards or Ad Policies; reduce the distribution of misinformation and false news, and inform people by giving them more context on the posts they see — so people can decide what to read, trust, and share.

During the pandemic, we’ve removed more than 12 million pieces of harmful misinformation on COVID-19 globally from Facebook and Instagram, including falsehoods about approved vaccines. Facebook has put warning labels on over 167 million posts marked as false by third-party fact checkers. When people see warning labels, about 95% of the time they do not go on to view the original content.

We endeavor to give people the tools to make qualified decisions about the information they see online. To support this effort, over the coming weeks we will be rolling out a new campaign in India to educate and inform people about how to detect misinformation related to COVID-19 and encourage them to check the information they receive against an authentic source such as www.mygov.in/covid-19/.  

We have developed 6 easy tips to fight COVID-19 misinformation. These tips will show up on Facebook through a series of creative adverts, and link out to a dedicated microsite, www.fightcovidmisinfo.com/india/. Through the website and the adverts, we will encourage people to 

Get the whole story, not just the headline. 

Look out for a trusted source 

Share  facts, not rumours 

Get the full context from credible sources 

Inform friends and family if they are sharing inaccurate information 

Pause before you share 

The campaign and the website will be rolled out in English and 9 Indian languages - Hindi, Tamil, Telugu, Oriya, Malayalam, Marathi, Kannada, Gujarati and Bengali.

Continuing our endeavour to provide accurate and reliable information and resources on COVID-19, Facebook has also initiated a campaign in association with some of the leading doctors of the country. The campaign includes a series of 12 videos where Doctors address the most commonly asked questions on COVID-19. The video series - #DoctorKiSuno - will premiere on https://www.facebook.com/FacebookIndia  and will cover key topics like COVID-19 in children, Diabetes and COVID-19, the mental health impacts of Covid-19 among others.  

Through this COVID-19 pandemic and beyond, we’ll continue working with partners and the community to ensure we’re effectively tackling misinformation. We will give them the resources they need to help spot and challenge the content they are seeing online, and to share accurate information with their friends and family over social media.