On March 3, 2020, the proliferation of hoaxes about him corona viruss forced Facebook to take measures to limit their circulation. “It’s not okay to share something that puts people in danger,” Mark Zuckerberg, its founder and CEO, explained at the time. More than two years later, the platform wants to take advantage of the relaxation of the pandemic to end restrictions on misinformation about the covid.
However, it is a thorny problem, since the impact of the health crisis has varied depending on the country. That is why the red social has decided to go to its supervisory board, a panel of experts created in 2020 to advise, to make a decision. “We are requesting an advisory opinion on whether the current measures of Meta to address covid-19 misinformation under our health-harming misinformation policy remain appropriate,” said the company’s head of global affairs, Nick Clegg.
Meta’s current content moderation policy has tried to curb the proliferation of hoaxes about the coronavirus, such as conspiracy theories who deny the existence of covid or who attribute the existence of virus to a diabolical plan of certain countries. The measures taken so far have been such as labeling posts that were not true, redirecting the user to reliable information from sources such as the World Health Organization (OMS) or even ban ads that sought to profit from the pandemic.
Non-binding opinion
The Facebook Oversight Board is an independent group created in 2020 to advise the company on controversial issues, such as the blocking of former President Donald Trump’s account. However, the opinion of this body is purely advisory, so Facebook does not commit to adopting its resolution, something that has led critics to point out that it is a maneuver by the platform to cover up its controversial decisions.
Meta’s final decision could take up to more than two months, as the company establishes that it must respond and react to the board’s recommendations within a maximum of 60 days after they have been published.