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LEMON TREE

April 25, 2020

Tech Companies Continue to Fight FalseCoronavirus Information

Exercise 1- Vocabulary

perpetuate – v. tomake something continue, especially something bad

rumor – n. informationor a story that is passed from person to person but has not been proven true

debunk – v. toshow evidence that something is not true

void – n. alarge hole or empty space

Excercise2 - Article

Tech Companies Continue to Fight FalseCoronavirus Information

False information about the new coronavirus hascontinued to spread around the world, just like the illness itself. In answer,major technology companies have created new tools and rules to reducemisinformation and provide facts about the virus.

Health officials and others have welcomed thenew efforts. They have long urged tech companies to do more to prevent thespread of false information online.

AndyPattison is head of digital solutions for the World Health Organization (WHO).He told The Associated Press that some major tech companies have taken strongeraction to reduce coronavirus misinformation.

For the past two years, Pattison has beenurging companies like Facebook to take more aggressive action against falseinformation about vaccinations. Now, he says his team spends a lot of timeidentifying misleading coronavirus information online. Sometimes, Pattisoncontacts officials at Facebook, Google and YouTube to request that they removesuch misinformation.

In some cases, coronavirus misinformation hasled to deadly results. Last month, Iranian media reported more than 300 peoplehad died and 1,000 were sickened after eating methanol, a poisonous alcohol.Information about the substance being a possible cure for coronavirus hadrecently appeared on social media.

In the American state of Arizona, a man diedand his wife became seriously ill after taking chloroquine phosphate, a productthat some people mistake for the anti-malaria drug chloroquine.

The U.S.Food and Drug Administration, FDA, says chloroquinephosphate is used to treat disease in fish kept at home. It is not meant to betaken by humans. Chloroquine has been used to treat malaria and some otherconditions in humans. It is being studied as a possible treatment for COVID-19,the disease caused by the new coronavirus.

U.S. President Donald Trump and some of hissupporters have said they think chloroquine could be an effective treatmentagainst the virus. Similar claims about chloroquine were widely publicized andshared on social media.

However, health officials have warned that thedrug has not been proven to be safe or effective in treating or preventingCOVID-19. Twitter and Facebook decided to take steps to reduce the spread ofinformation about such unproven treatments.

Twitter removed a post by Trump’s personallawyer Rudy Giuliani that described hydroxychloroquine, which is related tochloroquine, as “100 percent effective” against coronavirus. Twitter alsoremoved a tweet from a Fox News broadcaster in which she said the drug hadshown “promising results.”

And in what may have been a first, Facebookremoved information posted by Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro, who claimedhydroxychloroquine was “working in every place” to treat coronavirus. Twitteralso removed a linked video.

Facebook, Twitter, Google and others haveincreased their use of machine learning tools to identify false information.They also have put in place new restrictions on publishing misinformation.

Dipayan Ghosh is co-director of the PlatformAccountability Project at the Harvard Kennedy School in Cambridge,Massachusetts. He told The Associated Press that technology companies havelearned that the publication of misinformation about the coronavirus can havetragic results.

“They don’twant to be held responsible in any way for perpetuating rumors thatcould lead directly to death,” Ghosh said.

For example, the Facebook-owned privatemessaging service WhatsApp has put a limit on the number of people users canforward messages to. WhatsApp hopes this helps limit the spread of COVID-19misinformation.

Facebook also recently announced that it wouldstart warning users if they have reacted to or shared false or harmful claimsabout COVID-19. The company says it will start sending such warning messages inthe coming weeks. The users will also be directed to a website where the WHOlists and debunks misinformation about the coronavirus.

In addition to efforts to reduce falseinformation, technology companies have noted they are widely publishing factsabout the virus from trusted news sources and health officials. They are alsomaking that information easy for users to find.

The WHO’s Andy Pattison praises those efforts,too; more correct information can help reduce the level of misinformation, hesaid.

“People will fill the void out offear,” he added.

Questions:

1. What hasAndy Pattison been involved in for the past two years?

2. What hasthe FDA said about chloroquine phosphate?

3. How didFacebook react to information posted by Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaroabout the drug hydroxychloroquine?

4. What didFacebook say its new user warning system is designed to do?