In an effort to reduce the fake news surrounding the coronavirus, the World Health Organization (WHO) is working with Google and other social media platforms to ensure that people get facts from a reliable source – WHO – first when they search for information about the recently emerged virus. This interesting topic came to us from Fox Business in their article, “WHO, Google to combat coronavirus misinformation.”
Social media platforms such as Twitter, Facebook, Tencent, and TikTok have also taken steps to limit the spread of misinformation and rumors about the virus and outbreak that first emerged in the Chinese city of Wuhan. A number of misleading claims and hoaxes about the virus have circulated online including false conspiracy theories that the virus was created in a lab and that vaccines have already been manufactured, exaggerations about the number of sick and dead, and claims about bogus cures.
Anyone else see the irony in directing the public to verify accurate science information before publishing?
Melody K. Smith
Sponsored by Data Harmony, a unit of Access Innovations, the world leader in indexing and making content findable.