Facebook has already implemented different strategies to eradicate misinformation about COVID-19 on its platform. It uses a moderation system, alerts and additional information in its Help Center.
And now it will begin to implement a new dynamic to ensure that users are not paying attention to posts with erroneous content about COVID-19.
New Facebook strategy to combat misinformation
Facebook will send a notification directly to those users who share, comment or like posts that have been removed for containing misinformation about COVID-19.
These users will receive a message of this style “» We removed a post that you liked and that had false and potentially harmful information about COVID-19 “, as mentioned in FastCompay. Considering that users interact with many posts on Facebook, you will be shown a thumbnail image of the referenced content, the interaction it made, and the reason for its removal.
That way, it won’t go unnoticed that the story contains misinformation about COVID-19. And on the other hand, a section is added in the notification under “What you can do” that gives a series of options to users, for example, stop following the page or medium that shared the wrong information. And of course, it will direct users to reliable information using different sources.
So this new Facebook strategy is a bit more precise about the warning it gives the user. On the other hand, it follows the same vein of reporting bad content, but without specifically addressing what the problem is.
This new dynamic will be complemented by the rest of the measures that Facebook has been applying on the platform for some time. For example, they have already mentioned on several occasions that they have eliminated groups that share conspiracy theories and promote misinformation about COVID-19 vaccines.
It remains to be seen if this Facebook move makes a difference as disinformation about COVID-19 is plaguing the platform.
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