Social networks Facebook and Instagram have already dropped more than 1 million Brazilian posts with what they classified as “serious misinformation” about Covid-19, announced Meta, the platform’s parent company, on Thursday (11).
According to the press release, comments, posts and Stories on the subject were deleted, based on information supported by scientific principles of the World Health Organization (WHO) and “health authorities around the world”, says the company.
The deleted content had the potential to “put people’s lives at risk”: “This includes, for example, statements denying the existence of the pandemic or that COVID-19 vaccines can lead to death or autism, which is not true ”, says the note.
“As scientific knowledge and new facts about COVID-19 emerge, our list of removeable false disease content is updated, always in consultation with experts and health authorities and seeking to balance people’s safety and freedom to expression”, they add.
Meta also highlighted the existence of “COVID-19: Facebook’s Information Center”, accessed more than 76 million times in Brazil alone.
Among the topics discussed are clarifications on the testing of vaccines before they are safely available to the public, the possibility of young people contracting Covid-19 and the lack of effectiveness of the act of “holding your breath” to identify the disease.
For WhatsApp, which is also a Meta company, the note highlights that checking companies have established “bots” to disseminate reliable news about the pandemic.
“More than 150 health organizations around the world already use WhatsApp to fight misinformation and share life-saving information, such as the WHO itself (with a channel in Portuguese), as well as partnerships with health authorities in more than 45 countries , including the Ministry of Health of Brazil, the Secretariat of Health of the State of São Paulo, the Butantan Institute and the City of Recife”, stated the report.
Reference: CNN Brasil
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