For the social media giant – Facebook it is a cleaning time. The company is all set to remove the propaganda or misinformation regarding the coronavirus outbreak coming through its platforms. In the recent post issued on Thursday, the company’s Head of Health Mr. Kang Xing Jin was seen stating the company would remove all the fake news about the said virus that has been posted on the view of hatching conspiracy theories, which have been flagged by the health giant – WHO. This fake info is simply causing harm to people who are unnecessary believing in them.
This certainly includes the false cures or prevention methods as well including consuming bleach to cure the virus or adding more confusion regarding the health resources that are seen available claimed the Health Head. He added over his post on Instagram preventing the hashtag and carrying out the “proactive sweeps” for removing the false content that spreading panic kind of situation about the virus. The move was carried out by WHO declared by the global health company about the virus that is seen spreading like a wildfire infecting around 10K people in China alone and 213 people are already been killed by the same.
This is not the first time when Facebook has taken such an action, it has taken similar preventive steps earlier as well. Also, FB is not alone, as we see the other tech giant like Google and Microblogging site Twitter also taking the key steps in dealing with the misinformation regarding the same. Google was seen taking the step of displaying the info coming from WHO regarding the virus with the help of sharing a video sharing only some authentic reports about the virus and prevention methods. On the other side, the Microblogging site Twitter adjusting the information as per the “authoritative health sources” over its top pages making several searches regarding the virus.
Facebook, on the other hand, has gone over with the other deals as well as in the past when it comes to health-related issues. Spreading fake news using its pages has been also castigated by other groups. The social media site has been slammed for having the anti-vaccination posts last year. The announced partnership by WHO seems to have aimed to steer the users to be fed only with the precise vaccination information that comes from the health agency of the UN. With this move of Facebook dealing tough with misinformation about the same gives a big message that it is a serious issue. Even though the company has lost $50 billion in the market, yet they have to take this step for security and health reasons.