Tech platforms adopt range of policies to fight rise in false information on Covid-19.
Technology platforms have adopted completely different policies regarding misinformation of the coronavirus, with evidence that Twitter has become the focus of inaccurate and dangerous advice, while others, such as Pinterest and WeChat, restrict users' ability to communicate about an outbreak.
On Twitter, a tweet mistakenly claimed that manual antibacterial antiseptic is useless against the virus, arguing that these products only work against bacteria. He collected a quarter of a million likes and about 100,000 likes, suggesting millions of users, before removing it on Wednesday afternoon. In fact, any alcohol-based disinfectant or a simple soap can help.
The platform also allowed for a rapid spread of videos and photos aimed at showing the effects of the virus, such as collapsed victims or even the authorities ’violence, in blocked societies such as Iran and Wuhan. Many of the photos are old, reused and misappropriated, according to Snopes.
Fake Tweets are made by faketweetgenerator.com
Faulty Twitter information policies only apply to "platform manipulation": coordinate efforts to spread misinformation, which is generally supported by government actors. In the absence of a widely organized campaign, Twitter is no longer in a non-interference mode, without taking specific measures unless the Tweets of another site have violated a rule.
However, a website popup has been entered, visible in searches for "corona virus" and related terms, which directs users to the NHS website for more information. On Wednesday evening, the company announced new policies, banning ads that "appropriately use the Covid-19 outbreak to drive inappropriate ads."
In the middle of the spectrum, Facebook, whose CEO Mark Zuckerberg, announced a new set of policies to stop the spread of dangerous misinformation among the company's apps Wednesday morning. Like its competitors, Facebook has applied a logo that directs users looking for Coron viruses to the NHS website.
Instagram, owned by Facebook, has a mandatory popup that interrupts any search for the Corona virus hash with a message saying, "See the latest information from the National Health Service." Users outside the UK are directed to the World Health Organization (WHO) or other national health agencies.
Facebook also runs its advertising platform against misinformation about corona virus. Last week, the company banned advertisements for products it claimed to have either treated or prevented Covid-19 or that had created a "sense of urgency" about an outbreak. On Wednesday, Zuckerberg also pledged to give the WHO "the largest number of free advertisements you need", in addition to "millions of more advertising credits to other organizations."
These new features add to the company's current policies against "wrongful misinformation", which Facebook has long applied in its quieter fight against wrongful vaccine information on the site. The company takes a firmer stance against false health-related information than against other lies. Hide false information from search recommendations and forecasts, and reject ads containing wrong information about vaccines, if any.
This warning points to the drawbacks of Facebook's approach: It takes a lot of human effort to make a call about whether a given post, group, or ad is misinformed, which can slow responses and allow content to escape. Indeed, for example, advertisers are rewriting their language to promote their products, such as face masks and hand sanitizers, so that they are effective against "the flu", even if the rest of the ad is similar to the one that was eliminated by the Corona virus scare.
Pinterest, a much smaller social network, but still with hundreds of millions of users, has adopted a scorched earth policy. Corona virus searches on the virtual dashboard provide exclusive results from the verified WHO account.
This follows a similar approach, albeit less severe, that the company has adopted with misleading information about the vaccine, Pinterest said in a statement. "We have worked with the WHO over the past year to link Pinners with data on critical health problems, from the new Corona virus to vaccines. We want to do our part to make sure that people can find reliable information when it really matters."
Like social networks, chat apps have had a lot of responses. WhatsApp is the majority representative: for a variety of technical and political reasons, Facebook's messaging service has no real policy regarding misinformation about corona virus. Since WhatsApp, like competitors such as Signal, iMessage and Telegram, is encrypted from end to end, it is technically not possible for a company to scan messages or prevent the transmission of wrong information in other ways, which leads to designating the service as a risk of spreading serious advice.
But even unencrypted platforms, like Facebook Messenger, are less censored in individual chats than public social networks, with oversight of "private" messages a dangerous threshold that must be crossed.
The exception is express mail services located in China, where this moderation is common. A report issued by Canadian website CitizenLab showed on Tuesday that WeChat, the largest Chinese courier service, imposed great control over communications about the Corona virus for a much longer period than previously thought, until December 31, the day after a group of doctors trying to warn of an outbreak Not specified at that time.
CitizenLab said the censored content “included criticism from the government, rumors and information on speculation about the epidemic,” as well as references to Dr. Li Winliang, one of those doctors who issued an early warning and subsequently died of the disease, and a neutral reviewer of the Chinese government's efforts to deal with the outbreak That have been reported in government media. "
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