Facebook, Twitter weeding out fake news on Covid-19

The Straits Times, page A9 - https://www.straitstimes.com/singapore/facebook-twitter-weeding-out-fake-news-on-covid-19

Social media giants Facebook and Twitter have been removing millions of fake news items from their platforms in a bid to stamp out misinformation surrounding Covid-19. A Twitter spokesman told ST last Thursday that the company has removed more than 22,400 tweets and challenged 11.7 million accounts worldwide that contained problematic content since last year. Since last month, Facebook has removed two million content items from Facebook and Instagram, after expanding the list of false claims that it will remove during the pandemic.

NTU communications professor Shirley Ho said such steps need to continue. She said: "Social media giants need to pull their weight by actively removing inaccurate information (and) fake news about vaccines from their platforms, and by restricting further dissemination of such misinformation."