Israel Hayom has teamed up with Facebook to combat the online dissemination of fake and often harmful news about the coronavirus and vaccinations.
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Within the framework of the project, Israel Hayom and the social media giant have compiled a list of the 10 most widespread falsehoods disseminated online in Israel about the virus and vaccines:
- The coronavirus is not more dangerous than the common flu.
- Mortality rates due to the coronavirus are far lower than reported.
- Protective masks do not help prevent the spread of the virus.
- Recovering from the coronavirus is safer than getting vaccinated.
- The vaccine alters a person's DNA.
- The vaccine damages fertility.
- The vaccine causes Autism.
- The Israeli public is being exploited for the purposes of testing the efficacy and safety of the vaccine.
- Coronavirus vaccines kill people/are severely detrimental to people's health.
- The vaccine has not undergone all the necessary testing.
The purpose of the joint campaign is to encourage the public not to believe fake news and arm it with credible information about the virus and vaccinations. The goal is to debunk false rumors and help reassure those who are still afraid of getting vaccinated.
Since the early stages of the pandemic around one year ago in March 2020, Facebook and Instagram (which is owned by Facebook) have removed more than 16 million posts globally that violated the company's policies on sharing false information pertaining to the coronavirus.
Jordana Cutler, Facebook's Public Policy Director for Israel and the Jewish Diaspora, spoke to Israel Hayom about her company's efforts to contend with the challenges posed by the global pandemic over the past year.
"If I look back at the past year, we did a lot of work on all aspects of the coronavirus, with the support of the authorities here in Israel and around the world," she said.
"During the first lockdown we initiated a project with the ERAN association [hotline that provides emotional first aid], when there were many concerns surrounding emotional health, and we wanted to direct people who feel alone toward help," said Cutler. "We also worked with Magen David Adom, which was unable to cope with all the calls, and together with them we built a bot to direct people to corona testing and blood donation centers."
Culter added: "There's still a need for us to increase awareness. It's important to us to make all corona-related content accessible – in Hebrew and Arabic. The idea was created as part of our desire to cooperate with media bodies, which are considered a source of credible information, and to use their clout and voice, together with doctors and experts, in order to provide the information about the most conspiratorial issues surrounding the vaccine.
"These issues are very different in every country. We need to tailor ourselves to every [country in which we operate], but we still need to increase awareness among those who don't want to vaccinate or are worried about the vaccines, and increase awareness about all the information and discourse surrounding these issues – even among those who are afraid of sending their children to school," she said.
According to Culter, almost immediately after the vaccines were authorized for use, Facebook announced it would start removing disinformation pertaining to the vaccines, and which had been debunked by public health experts.
"We have fact-checkers in every language – in Hebrew and Arabic as well. If we are flagged [about possible disinformation], the posts are passed on to two external bodies which examine the information and can also research it independently. We can't tell them what to check and what conclusions to make. They are in contact with the local authorities, such as the Health Ministry. In cases where a post is deemed to be life-threatening, we can handle it in our own ways," she said.
"If we find a profile with multiple violations of our policy that continues to open new profiles – this also violates our terms of use," Cutler explains, after Facebook recently shut down several groups for disseminating false information about the virus, while their members quickly joined newly started groups.
"Clearly it's a game of cat and mouse, and we're always trying to find new ways to fight this phenomenon. But thanks to artificial intelligence we can shut down millions of fictitious profiles every quarter. We also rely on reports from media outlets – the information that journalists have is very important to us – and from every user, whether it's one thousand reports or one, we will check the profile's content," she said.
Q: And what fake news does Facebook have to deal with the most?
"It actually doesn't have to do with drinking bleach," Cutler said. "Most of the content deals with Israel being a global testing lab for the vaccines, that the coronavirus is less dangerous than the flu, or that you don't need to wear masks."
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