Social media giant Facebook has announced that it will soon be labeling all posts discussing coronavirus vaccinations with links to official information about COVID-19 from organizations like the World Health Organization.
TechCrunch reports that Facebook has announced plans to labels all posts discussing the coronavirus vaccination with links to official info about the virus. In a blog post the company stated:
We’ve already connected over 2 billion people to authoritative COVID-19 information, and today as access to COVID-19 vaccines expands, we’re going even further and aiming to help bring 50 million people one step closer to getting vaccinated.
To do this, we’re helping people learn more about COVID-19 vaccines and find out when and where they can get one through our apps. Some of the ways we are doing this:
- A tool to connect people to information about where and when to get a COVID-19 vaccine
- Expanding our COVID-19 Information Center to Instagram
- Expanding official WhatsApp chatbots on COVID-19 to get people registered for vaccinations with health authorities and governments
- Adding labels on posts about COVID-19 vaccines to show additional information from the World Health Organization
- Making real-time aggregate trends in COVID-19 vaccinations, intent to get vaccinated and reasons for hesitancy available to public officials to inform equitable vaccine rollout
By working closely with national and global health authorities and using our scale to reach people quickly, we’re doing our part to help people get credible information, get vaccinated and come back together safely.
Facebook will also reportedly be implementing some “temporary” measures aimed at limiting the spread of misinformation related to the vaccine, stating that it’s reducing the distribution of content from users that it claims violate the site’s policies on COVID-19 and vaccine information.
Facebook will also be reducing the distribution of any COVID-19 or vaccine content that fact-checking partners have rated as “Missing Context.”
Facebook also plans to “further elevate information from authoritative sources when people seek information about COVID-19 or vaccines.”
Read more about Facebook’s plans to crack down on coronavirus misinformation at TechCrunch here.
Lucas Nolan is a reporter for Breitbart News covering issues of free speech and online censorship. Follow him on Twitter @LucasNolan or contact via secure email at the address lucasnolan@protonmail.com
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