Facebook expands efforts to tackle false claims about Covid-19, vaccines

Facebook is expanding its efforts to take down false claims related to Covid-19 that are being spread on the social networking platform. The expanded list of false claims also covers Covid-19 vaccines and vaccines in general during the pandemic. Facebook will take down such false claims from Instagram as well.

Some of the false claims that it will remove are “Covid-19 is man-made or manufactured”, “vaccines are not effective at preventing the disease they are meant to protect against”, and “it’s safer to get the disease than to get the disease.” You can check out the expanded list here.

It is worth noting that Facebook already bars such claims as advertisements.

Facebook said that it would begin implementing the updated policy with immediate effect. The social networking company will be focusing on Pages, groups, and accounts that breach the new rules. The company warned that it would take down groups, pages, and accounts that are regular offenders of spreading such false claims. 

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Users will have the option to ask for a review if they think their claims about Covid-19 or vaccines did not violate the policies. In case Facebook’s third-party fact-checkers rate them as false, the posts will be labelled and demoted.

Apart from expanding the list, Facebook said it has also improved Search information on the Covid-19.

“When people search for vaccine or COVID-19 related content on Facebook, we promote relevant, authoritative results and provide third-party resources to connect people to expert information about vaccines. On Instagram, in addition to surfacing authoritative results in Search, in the coming weeks we’re making it harder to find accounts in search that discourage people from getting vaccinated,” the company said in a post.