Recently, Facebook has been accused of being a host to billions of dangerous hoaxes, fake news stories, and threatening health advice that has hyped views during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Mark Zuckerberg's social network has come under intense scrutiny in recent months because of helping misinformation to spread like a wildfire racking up billions of views.
The Social media platform is turning into a 'public health problem'. Bogus health-related posts are gaining Billions of views in the past few months. Amid the deadly pandemic raging across the globe, people have started clicking on various non-factual and dangerous Facebook news. Posts like 'drinking bleach can cure the Wuhan virus or rinsing the nose with saline solution can prevent the infection from spreading' have reached billions of clicks.
Activist non-profit group, Avaaz has now published the results of research it conducted, that claims Facebook had failed to keep to a lid on the dissemination of misinformation.
To the report, doctors also added that false claims about the Coronavirus vaccine on social media platforms can limit the numbers prepared to have a COVID jab if one became available.
The report has disclosed several serious accusations about Facebook’s track record on health. It cleans that global misinformation gained over 3.8 billion views in the last year. Where Facebook said that the report does not mention the steps it has taken to stop misinformation.
The firm stated, “ We share Avaaz's goal of limiting misinformation. Thanks to our global network of fact-checkers, from April to June, we applied warning labels to 98 million pieces of Covid-19 misinformation and removed seven million pieces of content that could lead to imminent harm.”
“We've directed over two billion people to resources from health authorities and when someone tries to share a link about Covid-19, we show them a pop-up to connect them with credible health information”.
Avaaz's reports suggest that despite the firm's efforts, it could only identify 16% of misinformation that carried warning labels on Facebook. The websites that spread health misinformation reached a peak of approximately 460 million views in April 2020.
That means the bonus news has spread with the rapid escalation of the global pandemic.
Researchers from Avaaz state that the content from the top 10 websites spreading fake health news on Facebook has as much as four times the views on Facebook as the content from the Top 10 verified and official health institutions like World Health Organisation.
Numerous fake news is circulated from private pages and on private chats that have hidden views. To be particular, a total of 42 Pages were highlighted as being the key hosts to lead the health misinformation.
Most of these pages have over 28 million followers and they generate estimating 800 million views.
Avaaz's report said, “ Facebook is failing to keep people safe and informed during the pandemic”.
Some of the forged news reports include:
• 8.4 million views on a post claiming that “Bill Gates Foundation tested a Polio VAX in India causing Paralysis to over 496.000 children.”
• 4.5 million views on an article stating a dangerous cure to Ebola virus that said that Colloidal Solver with Vitamin C can kill the Ebola virus.
• 2.4 million views on a post that says “Quarantine harms public health.”
Avaaz’s report says that even the most ambitious strategies of Facebook are failing to effectively protect society.
