All three social media giants – Twitter, Instagram and Facebook – have recently implemented measures to help users receive more accurate, relevant COVID-19 updates in their feeds.
During this unprecedented global pandemic, there’s lots of inaccuracies out there and with many of us in #selfquarantine mode, it gives some comfort to know that social media is racing to keep up on top of what we need to know and more importantly, update us from both the World Health Organization (WHO) and the Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).
INSTAGRAM has begun restricting hashtags being used to spread misinformation, banning ads that exploit the pandemic as well as fact-checking potentially misleading posts.
They’re also highlighting accounts in your feed pointing to leading health organizations when doing a coronavirus-related search.
FACEBOOK announced a ban on all ads and commerce listings for medical face masks to help prevent price gouging — supplies are short and in high demand. As well, they’re prohibiting people from posting COVID-19-related health claims.
TWITTER revised its travel policy to ensure they’re playing their part in the global containment efforts relating to COVID-19 by protecting public conversation, helping people find authoritative health information, raising relief efforts and contributing pro bono ad support to make sure the public is getting the “right message from the right source”.
They’ve now expanded an original COVID-19 search prompt to 50 countries (in several languages) to guide users towards accurate, up-to-date information on the outbreak.
And similar to Facebook, Twitter has implemented bans on “any attempt by advertisers to opportunistically use the COVID-19 outbreak to target inappropriate ads”.
Later this week, we’ll be publishing a more in-depth look at our thoughts on the Coronavirus and where we stand with regard to social media.
