In an interview, Mark Zuckerberg, the Facebook CEO, said that his company would continue censoring conversations surrounding coronavirus that spread what he deems to be misinformation.
“Even if something isn’t going to lead to imminent physical harm, we don’t want misinformation to be the content that is going viral,” said Zuckerberg, in an interview with BBC.
Among the several things that were taken off of Facebook due to falling in the bucket of COVID-19 misinformation, the claims of the Brazilian president were also included.
Jair Bolsonaro, the President of Brazil, said several things about the pandemic which also included claiming that scientists found a cure for the virus.
Zuckerberg said that Bolsonaro was censored on the platform because his claims were “obviously” untrue. He then spoke about banning posts that promote links between the 5G rollout and the coronavirus.
“We work with independent fact-checkers. Since the COVID outbreak, they have issued 7,500 notices of misinformation which has led to us issuing 50 million warning labels on posts. We know these are effective because 95% of the time, users don’t click through to the content with a warning label,” Zuckerberg revealed – suggesting fact-checking someone’s statement is almost as effective in making sure no one sees it as removing it altogether.
