Facebook Deletes 7m Posts With Coronavirus Misinformation

It’s certainly been a rough few months as we all look to try and stay safe in these troubling times. For social media, however, attempting to keep on top of the masses of misinformation surrounding COVID-19 has been more than a little tricky.

In something of a positive step (well, depending on how you view it), however, in a report via Engadget, Facebook has confirmed that between April and June, they deleted around 7 million posts which, in their view, contained fake news or dangerous opinions on the Coronavirus pandemic.

Facebook Hits Coronavirus Misinformation

As well as deleting 7 million posts providing false or bad information surrounding COVID-19 during this period, Facebook has also confirmed that a further 98 million posts (yes, 98,000,000) were issued with ‘labels’ identifying them as false, but not being quite ‘bad’ enough that it required their removal from the platform.

It does, however, clearly highlight just how major a problem this has been for Facebook (and social media as a whole) and how much work has been required in order to attempt to keep on top of the ‘misinformation’ aspect.

What Do We Think?

It’s very easy to be critical of how Facebook moderates its website. Largely because they are, for all intents and purposes, only answerable to themselves. It is, however, hard to ignore that misinformation on COVID-19 could prove to have very dangerous consequences and, as such, while it’s certainly a high number, this has probably all been for the best! – The last thing we need, after all, is more nonsense or ill-informed opinions on the subject!

What do you think? Are you surprised by this number? Do you think social media as a whole has done a good job in keeping on top of COVID-19 misinformation? – Let us know in the comments!