The fight against misinformation
https://www.thestar.com/politics/federal/2020/05/12/facebook-says-it-flagged-covid-19-misinformation-50-million-times-in-april.html
Nearly seven in 10 people who responded to an online survey from the Social Media Lab at Ryersons’ Ted Rogers School of Management said they had personally encountered misinformation about the global health crisis on social media platforms, or on popular aggregator websites like Reddit. The “infodemic” seems to be most acute on Facebook, where 80 per cent of users responded they encounter COVID-19 misinformation “sometimes” or more frequently. But while Facebook users were more likely to encounter misinformation, researcher Anatoliy Gruzd said misinformation is platform-agnostic.
“Misinformation can start as a post on Facebook, morph into an image on Instagram, and then become a part of a YouTube video,” said Gruzd on Tuesday. The survey included 1,500 adult Canadian internet users, and was conducted between April 7 and April 19.
The findings come as Facebook announced it had flagged 50 million pieces of COVID-19 misinformation circulating on the platform in April. Based on the research of independent fact-checking agencies, the social media giant slapped warnings on the false content.
But even a cursory glance at some Canadian Facebook groups show that borderline content — such as articles calling COVID-19 a “political hoax” or conspiracy theories about the nature of the pandemic — remain online with no warning.
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