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16 April 2020updated 06 Oct 2020 9:45am

Facebook unveils plan to curb coronavirus misinformation

By Oscar Williams

Facebook has unveiled new measures to curb the spread of fake news on its platform after researchers described it as the “epicentre of coronavirus misinformation”. 

The social media giant plans to roll out alerts linking users who have seen or shared coronavirus misinformation to the World Health Organisation’s guidance on the outbreak.

Researchers had criticised Facebook’s response to fake news after revealing it can take the company three weeks to issue warnings about conspiracy theories linked to the pandemic.

A spokesperson for Facebook said the new measures would “connect people who may have interacted with harmful misinformation about the virus with the truth from authoritative sources, in case they see or hear these claims again off of Facebook”.

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