META Meta Platforms Inc

By Jeff Horwitz 

To suppress misinformation about the coronavirus, Facebook Inc. has altered its search results, created pop-ups directing users toward public-health authorities and offered the World Health Organization what Chief Executive Mark Zuckerberg called "as many free ads as they need."

Users who click over to Facebook's "Groups" tab, however, find that hoaxes and hysteria are circulating widely in those forums.

"Is anybody else coming to the conclusion this is a weaponised HIV virus that is attached to a highly resistant flu virus?" asked one user, one of many swapping unproven theories about the disease having been created on purpose.

Facebook groups -- heralded as the future of the platform by Mr. Zuckerberg last year -- are emerging as difficult terrain in the company's coronavirus response. Unlike news stories shared on the platform, posts in groups aren't included in Facebook's third-party fact-checking program.

Seeking to balance people's desire to discuss the virus with its own efforts to ensure misinformation doesn't get out of hand, Facebook said in a statement that it is working to remove coronavirus-themed groups and pages from its algorithmically generated recommendations and will reduce how much attention is directed to posts in groups that share misinformation. The company said it is also looking at "other ways to connect people in groups with credible information" and is seeking feedback from group administrators.

Facebook has had experience combating public-health misinformation. Last year, the company said it would delete antivaccination groups that routinely spread falsehoods, though it hasn't released information about how often such erasures have occurred. That effort was informed by a longstanding consensus of major health organizations about what constituted vaccine misinformation, something that isn't available in the face of a novel and evolving epidemic.

Open to virtually all users with an interest in discussing the coronavirus, some of the newly formed Facebook groups have grown to more than 50,000 members in a matter of weeks. More than 120 groups now exist on the platform with coronavirus in their name, and a review shows they regularly mix discussion of mainstream news stories with apocalyptic forecasts and information incompatible with mainstream news reports and official public health statements.

Along with making predictions of mass death within the U.S. from the virus, users have posted videos recommending people protect themselves with face masks made of paper towels, shared dubious video footage of the streets of Wuhan spattered with blood from supposed coronavirus victims and repeated false allegations that Chinese patients are being "cremated alive."

Last month the WHO lamented an "infodemic" in which excessive chatter "makes it hard for people to find trustworthy sources and reliable guidance when they need it."

Some of the Facebook groups appear to be commercially motivated, with organizers hawking surgical masks, purported immune-boosting zinc lozenges or other preparedness products.

Facebook has traditionally sought to take a light touch to groups, which Mr. Zuckerberg has described as a way for communities to organize around shared interests. The "groups" tab was made more prominent in a substantial redesign of the website and mobile app last year.

"Groups are at the heart of the app," Mr. Zuckerberg said in an interview with The Wall Street Journal last year. He said that the company had a responsibility to discourage people from joining conspiracy-minded groups, but that "If people really seek it out on their own, fine."

In addition to the groups on coronavirus, another hundred pages describe themselves as "communities," media outlets or health information resources, and act as similar forums for discussion.

Some of the pages take mainstream news stories and reframe them in apocalyptic terms. One page with 50,000 followers shared a link to a CNN article along with a label that read, "Millions will die from lack of care. You were warned."

The article didn't say anything similar to that.

Experts in public-health communication said that shutting down misinformation among groups of people seeking it out likely isn't plausible. The challenge for Facebook, as well as public-health entities like the WHO and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, is to monitor social media for dangerous misinformation that begins spreading beyond devoted conspiracy theorists, said Glen Nowak, director of the University of Georgia's Center for Health and Risk Communication and a top former CDC communications official.

"The vast majority of people aren't in those groups," Mr. Nowak said. "That's reassuring."

Write to Jeff Horwitz at Jeff.Horwitz@wsj.com

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

March 06, 2020 10:52 ET (15:52 GMT)

Copyright (c) 2020 Dow Jones & Company, Inc.