Facebook plans to stop deleting misinformation about Covid-19

The site evokes a situation very different from the one that led to the hardening of doctrinal rules regarding misinformation.

Should misinformation about Covid-19 and vaccination be allowed back on Facebook? In A press release Put online on Tuesday, July 26, the American company openly asks the question. He announced that he would appeal to his “oversight board,” a body responsible for bringing an “outside” look to his decisions, to determine whether his rules should permanently ban such publications.

“As part of our policy against health-threatening misinformation, we are seeking an advisory opinion from the Oversight Committee to determine whether measures taken by Meta (parent company of Facebook and Instagram, Editor’s Note) are appropriate against misinformation related to Covid-19 or alerted by our monitoring or third-party verifiers. Or the company asks if it should fight back against this misinformation through other means, such as taking down content.

Theoretical measurements

Facebook, which says it has removed about 25 million pieces of content since the pandemic began, is pushing for the first time an end to its efforts to remove abusive content and replace it with a more flexible process, such as a simple warning. to the contents. This hypothesis is justified in his view by the now more peaceful situation, with “life gradually returning to normal” in heavily vaccinated countries.

Like all major social platforms, Facebook has implemented measures to combat misinformation since the beginning of the Covid-19 pandemic, the effectiveness of which is difficult to assess. The social network has hidden a false report on its site about the success of misinformation, especially regarding the vaccine against Covid-19.

In France, conspiracy videos sometimes top the most popular content about vaccination. Like Twitter, Facebook declined to answer Arcam’s questions about statistics on the amount of misinformation on its services.