Lots of coronavirus misinformation has spread around the internet over recent months and it looks like Facebook has funnelled its users towards it. A report by the Guardian has found that coronavirus misinformation has attracted nearly half a billion views on Facebook.
Facebook has boasted in recent days about its action on misinformation. It claimed that the company has removed 7 million pieces of Coronavirus misinformation. The social media platform has also begun warning users before they post Covid-19 related articles.
However, it looks like these steps have failed to curb the spread of misinformation relating to the pandemic. The report shows that the company’s algorithm may have fuelled traffic to a network of sites sharing fake news.
Facebook funnels users to Coronavirus fake news
The importance of this issue can not be understated. Bangladesh’s International Centre for Diarrhoeal Disease Research have linked 800 deaths directly to a single piece of coronavirus misinformation.
Pages from top 10 sites which share coronavirus misinformation receive four times as many views on Facebook. These sites span a range of topics including alternative medicine, organic farming, far-right politics and generalised conspiracies.
The report also found 82 sites spreading health misinformation generated an estimated 3.8bn views. These originate from five countries and occurred over the last year.
In April this peaked at 460m view. The report stated although Facebook was trying to raise the profile of authoritative news its “algorithm was potentially undermining these efforts”.
Report finds ‘super-spreaders’ of fake news
The report uncovered a small network driving traffic to health misinformation sites. The report dubbed these 42 sites as “super-spreader” pages. They generated 28m followers and 800m views.
The report also found one single article was seen 160m times. This particular piece claimed doctors were encouraged to over-estimate deaths.
The research, therefore, suggested Facebook cannot protect its users from misinformation about health. British MP Damian Collins described this as a “yet another damning indictment of Facebook’s capacity to amplify false or misleading health information”.
He also said the “majority of this dangerous content is still on Facebook with no warning”. Clearly this sort of misinformation has spread widely and the majority of it is untrue. This was what the American Journal of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene claimed.
Health worries as a result of misinformation
Experts have worries that this misinformation will cause serious harm to the effort to tackle the pandemic. Either through people not following guidelines and spreading the virus. Or by doing dangerous things on the advice of fake information and doing themselves harm.
The researchers concluded that it was the role of national and international agencies to tackle misinformation. It claimed they should engage with social media companies to help debunk misinformation and spread correct information.
Facebook claims its algorithm demotes misinformation by up to 80%. However, this looks like it is not having the effect anyone wants. The research also found that posts marked for fact-checking often slipped through the cracks. This meant they could not be marked ‘false’ and demoted in the algorithm.
The research found that only one in five false posts carried a warning label. It also found that posts translated into other languages tended to slip through the cracks of the algorithm as well.
A potential solution would aim to put prominent corrections of misinformation in users feeds proactively. Research found that correction can reduce belief in misinformation by almost half.
Another key step is detection. The more misinformation found the easier it is to stop its spread. This would also include a focus on translated and cloned material.
Clearly, there is a long way to go to tackle misinformation. This report makes damming reading and demonstrates despite the claims of social media sites they are a long way from perfect. It does look like the direction we are travelling in is positive, but we do need to move more quickly.