Tech Companies Continue to Fight False Coronavirus Information

False information about the new coronavirus has continued to spread around the world, just
like the illness itself. In answer, major technology companies have created new tools and rules
to reduce misinformation and provide facts about the virus.

Health officials and others have welcomed the new efforts. They have long urged tech
companies to do more to prevent the spread of false information online.

Andy Pattison is head of digital solutions for the World Health Organization (WHO). He told The
Associated Press that some major tech companies have taken stronger action to reduce
coronavirus misinformation.

For the past two years, Pattison has been urging companies like Facebook to take more
aggressive action against false information about vaccinations. Now, he says his team spends a
lot of time identifying misleading coronavirus information online. Sometimes, Pattison contacts
officials at Facebook, Google and YouTube to request that they remove such misinformation.

In some cases, coronavirus misinformation has led to deadly results. Last month, Iranian media
reported more than 300 people had died and 1,000 were sickened after eating methanol, a
poisonous alcohol. Information about the substance being a possible cure for coronavirus had
recently appeared on social media.

In the American state of Arizona, a man died and his wife became seriously ill after taking
chloroquine phosphate, a product that some people mistake for the anti-malaria drug
chloroquine.

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration, FDA, says chloroquine phosphate is used to treat
disease in fish kept at home. It is not meant to be taken by humans. Chloroquine has been used
to treat malaria and some other conditions in humans. It is being studied as a possible
treatment for COVID-19, the disease caused by the new coronavirus.

U.S. President Donald Trump and some of his supporters have said they think chloroquine could
be an effective treatment against the virus. Similar claims about chloroquine were widely
publicized and shared on social media.

However, health officials have warned that the drug has not been proven to be safe or effective
in treating or preventing COVID-19. Twitter and Facebook decided to take steps to reduce the
spread of information about such unproven treatments.

Twitter removed a post by Trump’s personal lawyer Rudy Giuliani that described
hydroxychloroquine, which is related to chloroquine, as “100 percent effective” against
coronavirus. Twitter also removed a tweet from a Fox News broadcaster in which she said the
drug had shown “promising results.”

And in what may have been a first, Facebook removed information posted by Brazilian President
Jair Bolsonaro, who claimed hydroxychloroquine was “working in every place” to treat
coronavirus. Twitter also removed a linked video.

Facebook, Twitter, Google and others have increased their use of machine learning tools to
identify false information. They also have put in place new restrictions on publishing
misinformation.

Dipayan Ghosh is co-director of the Platform Accountability Project at the Harvard Kennedy
School in Cambridge, Massachusetts. He told The Associated Press that technology companies
have learned that the publication of misinformation about the coronavirus can have tragic
results.

“They don’t want to be held responsible in any way for perpetuating rumors that could lead
directly to death,” Ghosh said.

For example, the Facebook-owned private messaging service WhatsApp has put a limit on the
number of people users can forward messages to. WhatsApp hopes this helps limit the spread
of COVID-19 misinformation.

Facebook also recently announced that it would start warning users if they have reacted to or
shared false or harmful claims about COVID-19. The company says it will start sending such
warning messages in the coming weeks. The users will also be directed to a website where the
WHO lists and debunks misinformation about the coronavirus.

In addition to efforts to reduce false information, technology companies have noted they are
widely publishing facts about the virus from trusted news sources and health officials. They are
also making that information easy for users to find.

The WHO’s Andy Pattison praises those efforts, too; more correct information can help reduce
the level of misinformation, he said.

“People will fill the void out of fear,” he added.