Facebook eliminated 7 million harmful Covid-19 content in Q2.

Facebook seeks to eliminate content with misinformation about the pandemic

Facebook, in the context of combating disinformation about Covid-19, eliminated seven million messages that could cause physical damage in the second quarter, according to the latest data from the social network.

During this period, it labeled 98 million pieces of disinformation linked to the pandemic with warning messages.

“Thanks to our global network of verifiers, between April and June, we tagged 98 million pieces of disinformation linked to Covid-19 with warning messages and eliminated another seven million whose content could have resulted in physical damage,” a doorman said in August. -Facebook voice, quoted by Efe.

In addition, the social network directed “more than 2.000 billion people to resources from health authorities” and, when someone wants to share a 'link' about covid-19, Facebook shows “a message that allows connection with reliable information, ”said the same source at the time.

Last October, David Agranovich, Facebook's global threat interruption officer, stated at an online conference that most Covid-19-related disinformation campaigns use the pandemic only as a lure to capture users' attention. , which sometimes end up following pages with another type of content.

Whenever false information about the pandemic is detected, Facebook eliminates it.

For example, last month, the social network closed the page of a New Zealand nationalist political party, two days before the elections, for spreading false news about the new coronavirus pandemic.

“We are unwilling to allow” “false information to be shared on our platforms about covid-19 that could cause imminent physical harm,” said a Facebook spokesperson at the time.

Since the beginning of the pandemic, the social network has shown itself to be proactive in combating misinformation linked to Covid-19, which does not prevent it from being the target of criticism from many organizations, which consider Facebook a 'stage' for the dissemination of false information or incorrect.

For example, world citizenship platform Avaaz pointed out in August that Facebook's algorithm had “helped” networks that spread health misinformation reach an estimated 3.800 billion views over the past year.

On March 17, the social network led by Mark Zuckerberg reported that it was focused on three main areas within the pandemic: connecting people with accurate information and useful resources, limiting misinformation and harmful content, and supporting health experts, global level.

About 10 days later, Facebook announced the availability in Portugal of its Information Center on Covid-19 (Covid-19 Information Center), which includes real-time updates, and the donation of one million dollars to the international network of fact-checking ('International Fact-Checking Network) to expand the presence on WhatsApp, so that people could submit rumors they find to the 'fact-checkers'.

By May, the social network had already directed more than 2.000 million people to health authority resources from its Covid-19 Information Center and 'pop-ups' on Facebook and Instagram, according to the fifth edition of the Application Report on Community Standards.

In June, it began sharing information about Portugal and other countries on the Covid-19 symptom map, launched in April only for the United States of America (USA), which results from user surveys.

In addition to fighting misinformation about Covid-19, Facebook guarantees that it is 'battling' on other fronts such as hate speech, terrorism, harassment, among other topics.

With regard to the blocking of fake accounts, the number dropped from 1,7 billion in the first quarter of this year to 1,5 billion in the second quarter.

“We continue to improve our ability to detect and block attempts to create fake accounts. We estimate that our detection system will help us prevent millions of attempts to create fake accounts every day, ”says Facebook in its latest report, which points to a decline since the first quarter of 2019.

 



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