WHO and partners recognize that misinformation online has the potential to travel further, faster and sometimes deeper than the truth — on some social media platforms, falsehoods are 70% more likely to get shared than accurate news. To counter this, WHO has taken a number of actions with tech companies to remain one step ahead.
Changing social media policy and guidelines
WHO works with social media policy departments to ensure company policy and guidelines for content providers are fit for purpose. For example, WHO worked with YouTube to enhance their COVID-19 Misinformation Policy and provide guidelines for content providers to ensure no medical misinformation related to the virus proliferates on their platform. Policy updates such as this have led to the removal of 850,000 YouTube videos related to harmful or misleading COVID-19 misinformation from February 2020 to January 2021.