How Facebook can Flatten the Curve of
the Coronavirus Infodemic
Study indicates Facebook is rife with bogus cures and conspiracy theories that remain on
the platform long enough to put millions of people at risk
April 15, 2020

Contents
1. Executive Summary
2. Key Findings
3. How Facebook Can Inoculate Users Against Coronavirus Misinformation
4. Methodology and Data Set
5. Annex

Executive Summary
As the coronavirus crisis started to spread acrossthe globe, the World Health Organization (WHO)warned that “we’re not just fighting an epidemic;
we're fighting an infodemic”. It cautioned that “fakenews spreads faster and more easily than the virus,
and it is just as dangerous”.1
In response to the crisis, Facebook CEO Mark
Zuckerberg and other company executives launched
a media blitz to publicize the company’s expandedefforts to stop the spread of COVID-19
misinformation. Facebook announced that these
efforts had been “quick,” “aggressive,” and“executed...quite well.”2
In February, our team began detecting andmonitoring widespread misinformation about
COVID-19 online. In March, our investigative team
set out to analyse and assess the efficacy ofFacebook’s efforts to combat this “infodemic” on its
main platform.
For this study, of the thousands of pieces ofcoronavirus-related misinformation content being
shared on Facebook, we decided to examine over
100 pieces of misinformation content in six different
languages about the virus that were rated false andmisleading by reputable, independent fact-checkers
and could cause public harm.3
We found that millions of the platform’s users arestill being put at risk of consuming harmful
misinformation on coronavirus at a large scale.
Representing only the tip of the misinformation
iceberg, we found that the pieces of content wesampled and analysed were shared over 1.7 million
times on Facebook, and viewed an estimated 117
million times.
Even when taking into consideration thecommendable efforts Facebook’s antimisinformation team has applied to fight thisinfodemic, the platform’s current policies wereinsufficient and did not protect its users.
Of the 41% of this misinformation content thatremains on the platform without warning labels,
65% has been debunked by partners of Facebook’s
very own fact-checking program4 . Throughout the
timeframe of our research5 , this content remainedon the platform despite the company’s promise toissue “strong warning labels” for misinformation
flagged by fact-checkers and other third party
entities, and remove misinformation that could
contribute to imminent physical harm.6
Secondly, Avaaz found that there are significant
delays in Facebook’s implementation of its antimisinformation policies. These delays are especiallytroubling because they result in millions of users
seeing harmful misinformation content about thecoronavirus before the platform labels it with a fact
check and warning screen or removes it. Specifically,
we found that it can take up to 22 days for theplatform to downgrade and issue warning labels onsuch content, giving ample time for it to go viral.
Our analysis also indicates that Italian and Spanishspeaking users may be at greater risk of
misinformation exposure. Facebook has not yet
issued warning labels on 68% of the Italianlanguage content and 70% of Spanish-language
content we examined, compared to 29% of Englishlanguage content.
The scale of this “infodemic” along with Facebook's
reluctance to retroactively notify and provide
corrections to every user exposed to harmful
misinformation about the coronavirus is threatening
efforts to “flatten the curve” across the world andcould potentially put lives at risk.
In a conversation with members of Facebook’s
misinformation team on 13 April 2020, we werestrongly encouraged by unprecedented
commitments from Facebook to institute retroactive
alerts to fight coronavirus misinformation, an
important and necessary first step that could
potentially save lives7 .
To ensure that content that could cause imminent
physical harm to Facebook users was speedily
removed by the platform, we shared with thecompany on 8 April 2020 a list of misinformation
posts that we believe violate its policies andrecommended that all be removed. In response,
Facebook has, as of 14 April 2020, taken down 17of the posts we flagged, cumulating 2.4 million
estimated views.

Summary of Key Findings of the Analysed Sample:
Facebook is an epicentre of coronavirus
misinformation, and the platform must do
more to protect its users from this infodemic.

Over half (51%) of non-English
misinformation content had no warninglabels.

The 104 coronavirus-related pieces of
misinformation content analysed in thisreport have reached over 117 million
estimated views 8, even though thissample represents only the tip of theiceberg.

29% of fact-checked English-language
misinformation content analysed, as ofApril 7th 2020, was found without clear
warning labels from Facebook.

Of the 41% of this misinformation
content that remains on the platform
without warning labels, 65% had been
debunked by partners of Facebook’s very
own fact-checking program.
Facebook’s current anti-misinformation
efforts remain slow and insufficient in limiting
the spread of coronavirus misinformation,even when the content is flagged by theplatform’s very own fact-checking partners.
It can take up to 22 days for theplatform to downgrade and issue
warning labels on false content, evenwhen Facebook’s fact-checking partners
as well as the World Health Organizationand local health authorities, move at asignificant pace to issue corrections.
These delays mean that millions of users
see, interact with, and share themisinformation content before it islabeled and/or removed.
Italian, Spanish and Portuguese-speaking
users appear to receive significantly fewer
warning labels from Facebook, and hence areat greater risk of being exposed tomisinformation.

But our sample indicates Facebook
remains significantly less effective inmoderating COVID-19 misinformation in
Italian, Spanish, and Portuguese.
Coronavirus misinformation content mutatesand spreads faster than Facebook’s current
system can track it.
One effective misinformation story canmutate, infect, and then lodge into andremain across hundreds of Facebook
groups and pages without detection.
For example, a harmful
misinformation post9 that claimed
that one way to rid the body of thevirus is to drink a lot of water andgargle with water, salt or vinegar
was shared over 31k times before
eventually being taken down after
Avaaz flagged it for Facebook. But
the other 2,611 clones of that false
and misleading post remain on theplatform with over 92,246
interactions. Most of these cloned
posts have no warning labels fromFacebook.

Some of the most egregious falsehoods promoted by the content examined in this study include:
FALSE CLAIM“Black people are resistant to Coronavirus”10
The false claim that those with black skin are moreresistant to the coronavirus.
3,604 best available Interactions
112,830 estimated views

FALSE CLAIM“Good News: Coronavirus is destroyed by Chlorine
Dioxide”11
The false claim that chlorine dioxide cures the virus.
(6,368 best available Interactions and 199,362
estimated views)
6,368 best available Interactions
199,362 estimated views

FALSE CLAIM“Vice President Pence urges those withCoronavirus to go to the Police”12(The tweet in the image is fake, Vice President
Pence did not tweet this)13
The false claim that Vice President Mike Penceadvised those diagnosed with the virus to go to thenearest police station.
694 best available Interactions
21,727 estimated views

FALSE CLAIM“Hairdryers could be used for coronavirus
prevention“ 14The false claim that using hot air from a hair dryer
would fight the virus.
119,057 best available Interactions
2,600,000 Facebook views

FALSE CLAIM“Virus can be cured by one bowl of freshly boiledgarlic water“ 15The false claim that the virus can be cured withgarlic boiled in hot water.
115 best available Interactions
3,600 estimated views

Although Facebook has taken a number ofcommendable steps to fight the COVID-19
infodemic, such as providing the WHO with freeadvertising and promoting authoritative content tomillions of users through the COVID-19 hub, ourfindings raise the question of whether the company
is doing all that it can and must do to protect its
users. Our findings suggest that the platform must
adopt stronger steps to fight misinformation toremain in alignment with official statements it has
made to the public about its efforts to fightcoronavirus-related misinformation.
Notably, Facebook still has an opportunity to “flatten
the curve” of this “infodemic.” After consultation withindustry experts, academics, doctors, and legislators
around the world, Avaaz recommends that
Facebook urgently:

goes viral. Facebook must also share moredetailed information about the reach of false
and misleading content on its platform, thespeed at which the company detects andremoves this misinformation, and other key
data to ensure researchers can work with theplatform to innovate better solutions to thesechallenges.

Findings from a new academic study prove that
"Correct the Record" can cut belief in
misinformation and/or disinformation by anaverage of 50 percent, and by as much as 61
percent. Avaaz believes that Facebook can be a
trailblazer in the fight against misinformationand potentially save lives by implementing thissolution in full.

“Correct the Record”: This means that every
user who has been exposed to disinformation
and/or misinformation16 should be alerted andprovided with independently fact-checked
corrections.

Failing to implement the recommendations above toquickly and effectively quarantine coronavirus
misinformation means that there will continue to belarge numbers of individuals who will be exposed tothis harmful content on the platform, believe it,never receive a correction, and thus act upon theStart with “Correcting the record” formisinformation, putting themselves and thosecoronavirus misinformation: Facebook canaround them at risk. It also means that life-saving
immediately start by retroactively sending a
notification and a correction from the WHO, the services provided by the WHO, local healthauthorities, and the doctors and nurses, who are on
Center for Disease Control and Prevention
the frontlines of this crisis, will continue to become(CDC), and/or credible, independent factmore difficult as unknown numbers of social media
checkers to every user who interacted withusers heed misleading medical advice. Lives could
harmful misinformation posts related topotentially be lost.
COVID-19 before Facebook moderators
detected and labeled the content as false or
In the event that Facebook and other social
removed it.
media platforms refuse to act promptly to
Scale up moderation and fact-checking“Correct the Record”, Avaaz recommends thatcapacities, and continue to expand its work
the WHO, the CDC, local health authorities, andwith civil society researchers: Facebook must
legislators throughout the world urge thebring its moderation capacities to scale
platforms to adopt “Correct the Record”
throughout the world to swiftly detect and to
immediately.
work with fact-checkers to aggressively factcheck, downgrade and issue strong warninglabels on misinformation content before it

Key Findings
FACEBOOK IS AN EPICENTRE OF CORONAVIRUS MISINFORMATIONIn an official statement, Facebook announced that “weremove COVID-19 related misinformation that could
contribute to imminent physical harm,” and that “once a post
is rated false by a fact-checker, we reduce its distribution so
fewer people see it, and we show strong warning labels andnotifications to people who still come across it, try to share itor already have.”17
Our findings indicate a gap between these promises andwhat is actually happening on the platform. 43 pieces of
misinformation content that Avaaz analysed on Facebook(41% of our entire sample) have, as of April 7 2020, no
warning labels to inform users of falsehoods and potential
harms even though fact checks are publicly available for all
104 posts.
28 out of those 43 pieces of content with no warninglabels from Facebook (65%) have been fact-checked by
one of Facebook’s Third-Party Fact-Checking Program
partners. This indicates that even when Facebook factchecking partners detect and issue a correction forcoronavirus virus, the platform still has trouble labelingand downgrading it.
For example, this post18 by Natural Nana 19 (a page
whose banner reads “Modern medicine will cure you todeath”) from January 26, 2020 claims that oregano oil"can destroy human coronavirus" and "completely stop
its replication within 20 minutes of exposure". The
link20 shared in this post has 6,158 reactions and2,718 shares, with 100% of the “Top Referrals” for thislink21 on Facebook coming after 25 January 2020. Ourfindings indicate that the story was still being widely
shared in March with the associated claim thatoregano oil can kill COVID-19. This post was often
shared by actors interested in marketing oregano oilwith posts claiming it cures the virus. However, theoriginal claim this post refers to is a decade old,
originating from the website holisticprimarycare.net.
Scientists have said there is no such cure for COVID-19.
The heavy online traffic this refurbished story received as aresult of the pandemic led the editor of the website to issue
a clarification debunking the claim on the website itself, yet
the claim that “Oregano is a cure for coronavirus” continues
to spread on Facebook without any warning labels to inform
users who see this post that the information is false andcould lead to public harm.

24% of the 104 pieces of misinformation content we analysed could contribute to imminent physical harm
(according to Facebook’s content moderation policies)22, yet, as of April 7th 2020, only 8% of themisinformation content has been removed by Facebook.23
Facebook’s Chief Operating Officer Sheryl Sandberg said “we want people to get accurate information” and“we’re removing things quickly if they’re harmful.”24

ITALIAN, SPANISH AND PORTUGUESE SPEAKING USERS APPEAR TO BE AT
GREATER RISK OF UNCHECKED MISINFORMATION EXPOSURE
For 29% of fact-checked, English-language misinformation content in our sample, Facebook has not issued
warning labels alerting users to the falsehoods of this content. But the situation is very different forcontent in other languages, putting users in other countries that have been hit hard by the pandemic at
greater risk of misinformation exposure. Avaaz’s investigation found that as of 7 April 2020 over 51% of
the non-English content analysed, in total, has yet to receive warning labels by Facebook. Morespecifically, these labels have not been applied to:70% (7 out of 10) of Spanish-language content (to date, shared 510k times overall);68% (13 out of 19) of Italian-language content (to date, shared 307k times overall);50% (7 out of 14) of Portuguese-language content (to date, shared 78k times overall);22% (2 out of 9) of Arabic-language content (to date, shared 453k times overall);14% (1 out of 7) of French-language content (to date, shared 44k times overall), faring better than thescale at which English-language content was appropriately labeled.

Here is a more in-depth look at each language-specific subset of content analysed:

ENGLISH-LANGUAGE CONTENT:
29% of the English-language
misinformation content analysed (shared
290k times) has not been labeled by
Facebook.
16% of all the English stories fall into thecategory of the exact kind of violative
harmful content that Facebook has publicly
committed to remove.25
For example, in the post26 below and theaccompanying article 27, Andrew W Saul
claims, “The coronavirus pandemic can be
stopped with the immediate widespreaduse of high doses of vitamin C.” As of 7
April 2020, posts linking the article havereceived an estimated 301,110 views.
As fact-checking website, Lead Stories
concludes, “vitamin C does not slow or stopcoronavirus”, and “The WHO is warning against
misinformation regarding the prevention andtreatment of the virus, including claims thattaking large doses of vitamin C,[...] will either
prevent or slow the spread of it.”29
Although the original post has now been
removed by Facebook after being flagged by
Avaaz,30 a number of posts by others sharing
the same story remain on the platform without awarning label.

“The coronavirus pandemic can be stopped with theimmediate widespread use of high doses of vitamin C”28

PORTUGUESE-LANGUAGE CONTENT:
50% of the Portuguese-language content analysed (shared 78k times overall) has not beenlabeled by Facebook.
43% of the Portuguese samples fall into the category of misinformation that could lead toimminent harm.31
For example, in this video32 posted by Brazil’s President Jair Bolsonaro, he claims that the antimalarial drug, hydroxychloroquine, effectively cured 78 out of 80 COVID-19 patients in a study
and is “already a reality,” and, therefore, is a viable medicine to treat the virus. Nonetheless, as
numerous experts have highlighted, the use of hydroxychloroquine to treat COVID-19 patients is
controversial and there is not yet enough research to provide conclusive evidence of its safety oreffectiveness33. Misinformation about hydroxychloroquine as a viable treatment method has
already been linked to several deaths in the US.34 As of 10 April 2020, this video has beenviewed over 1.5 million times on Facebook.35

ITALIAN-LANGUAGE CONTENT:
68% of Italian-language misinformation content we analysed (shared 307k times overall) has
not been labeled by Facebook.
21% of the Italian misinformation posts sampled fall into the category of harmful content that
Facebook has publicly committed to remove, and these posts were still up on the platform as of
7 April 2020.36
For example, in one video,37 the speaker, who claims to be a medical doctor, says that staying
home is useless against the coronavirus and that our natural bacteria combined with burning
incense are sufficient to fend against infection. This video has been viewed over 1.1 million
times on Facebook as of 7 April 2020.

SPANISH-LANGUAGE CONTENT:
70% of the Spanish-language content analysed (shared 510k times) has not been labeled by
Facebook.
20% of the overall Spanish misinformation content sampled falls into the category of harmful
content that Facebook publicly committed to remove.38
For example, one meme reads, “Let’s avoid more deaths,” (Avaaz translation) and claims that theway to rid one’s body of the virus is to drink a lot of water and gargle with water, salt or vinegar.
The original post39, shared over 31,000 times on Facebook, has now been taken down after
Avaaz notified Facebook about it40. But the other 2,611 clones of this meme remain on theplatform with over 92,246 interactions. Most of these cloned posts have no warning labelsfrom Facebook. This example points to another gap in Facebook’s enforcement of its antimisinformation policies: Facebook may add a warning label on a specific piece of misinformation
content shared as an image, but that the warning label is not replicated when the image isposted or shared again by others.

ARABIC-LANGUAGE CONTENT:
22% of the Arabic-language content analysed (shared 453k times) has not been labeled by
Facebook.
56% of the overall Arabic content falls into the category of harmful content that Facebook
publicly committed to remove, and 80% of the posts that may cause physical harm were still on
the platform as of 7 April 2020 41.
For example, a video in Arabic42, posted on 20 March 2020, claimed that hair dryers could be
used for coronavirus prevention. The fact-checked video was taken down 11 days after it wasposted. It had been viewed at least 2.6 million times between posting and removal.

FRENCH-LANGUAGE CONTENT:
14% of the French-language content we analysed (shared 44k times) has not been labeled by
Facebook.
14% of the overall French content sampled falls into the category of harmful content that
Facebook committed to remove.43
For example, the article 44 linked in this post45 claims that coronavirus dies at temperatures
above 26/27 degrees Celsius and one can prevent infection by gargling with disinfectant.

VIRUS MISINFORMATION IS STILL GOING VIRAL - REACHING TENS OFMILLIONS OF FACEBOOK USERS
The 104 pieces of coronavirus misinformation
content Avaaz analysed on Facebook havebeen shared almost 1.7 million times and havereached over 117 million estimated views. It is
important to note that these numbers
represent the tip of the iceberg given thisinvestigation analysed a small sample ofmisinformation in only 6 languages and was
designed to investigate whether Facebook’s
response was as effective as the company
claims, and not the overall scale ofmisinformation on the platform.
The significant reach of the 104 pieces ofcontent suggests that Facebook’s efforts tostem the spread of coronavirus misinformation

are not as effective as company executives
have suggested.46
On 25 March 2020, Facebook announced that
100 million users clicked through its newly
released “COVID-19 Information Center.”47 If
the small selection of misinformation content
sampled for this analysis (104 posts) wereviewed an estimated 117 million times, thisstrongly suggests that hundreds of millions ofFacebook users across the world have likely
clicked through the vast amount of
misinformation content spreading across theplatform.

A better understanding of the true scale of this infodemic requires more openness from Facebook.
Specifically, Facebook continue to update researchers with answers to the following questions:

How many of its users have seen and clicked on harmful misinformation about COVID-19?
How many users have seen a warning label from one of its fact-checking partners?
Will Facebook begin to retroactively alert and provide independently fact-checked corrections from the
WHO and its fact-checking partners to every user who has been exposed to misinformation on its
platform?

One piece of misinformation content can mutatethen infect hundreds of Facebook accounts, groups
and pages and thrive for days to weeks without
detection.
For example, our team detected 28 variationsof one distinct misinformation post that
contained false and misleading medical
advice. Each mutation of this post maintains
the same overall content and form, but thesource attribution and language vary. Posts inthis chain of deception claim that the
information they are promoting is from theWHO, UNICEF, local health authorities(including the Canadian Department of Health),
and/or renowned hospitals (including the
Stanford Hospital Board) and doctors across atleast 14 countries (USA, Nigeria, Egypt, France,
Japan, Australia, Italy, Philippines, Ghana,
Ethiopia, India, Marshall Islands, Burma, Brazil).
They are also found in 8 different languages(English, Portuguese, Arabic, French, Chinese,
Burmese, Punjabi, and Italian).
The 28 posts promoted an almost identical listof misleading medical advice, including the
debunked claim that “taking a deep breath andholding it for more than 10 seconds” is a viable
way to find out if you have COVID-19.
Many of these posts are still being shared on
Facebook without any warning labels. For
example, up until 6 April 2020, we continued
to find the false post citing the “Stanford
Hospital Board” still active across dozens ofprofiles and groups on Facebook without any
fact checks or labels despite the fact that it
was debunked by the Associated Press48, a
Facebook fact-checking partner, on 12 March
2020. The Stanford Health Center also
debunked the claim.49

Facebook’s current counter-misinformation efforts remain slow and insufficient in limiting the spread ofcoronavirus misinformation, even when the content is flagged by the platform’s very own fact-checking
partners
For the subset of coronavirus-related
misinformation content in our study for which
Facebook added a warning label, there was anaverage 5-day delay between when harmful
misinformation content was posted and therelease of a fact check by a member ofFacebook’s Third-Party Fact-Checking
Program.
To assess how quickly Facebook issues
warning labels in response to its fact-checking
partners’ fact checks, Avaaz followed 4 false
stories that were debunked by Facebook’s
program partners and measured the numberof days between the moment the stories wereposted on the platform and when they wereappropriately labeled as false. For each pieceof content, it took 1, 4, 10 and 13 days
respectively for the platform to issue warninglabels after its partners had issued acorrection. This means that, on average, it cantake up to 7 days for a post to be labeled by
Facebook after the platform had a fact checkavailable from its partners.

If the anecdotal results above reflect what’s
happening across Facebook, this would meanthat it could take on average a total of 12days for Facebook to issue warning labels oncoronavirus misinformation content, or to
remove content that may cause imminent
harm.
This means that millions of users who see thecontent before these labels are enforced will
likely never know what they saw contained
false and misleading content.
For example, it took 22 days for Facebook tolabel a misinformation video in Spanish50
claiming that the virus was deliberately
created in a lab at the Institute of Virology in
Wuhan. By that time, the video had reached 33
million views. It took 9 days for the video to befact-checked by a Facebook partner and thenanother 13 days for the video to be labeled by
Facebook as misinformation.

Here’s a closer look at the sequence and timing of Facebook’s actions:

Independent fact-checkers have moved quickly to respond to the deluge of misinformation around
COVID-19, issuing fact checks within, on average, 5 days from when the misinformation
content is posted online. Fact-checking organisations alongside the WHO and the CDC are
performing a Herculean public service by issuing corrections to this flood of misinformation - but
Facebook is not doing enough to match these efforts by ensuring that fact checks reach those whoare exposed to and potentially harmed by the misinformation.
Facebook has often sought to shift the responsibility for delays in catching and labelingmisinformation to independent fact-checkers. By doing so, the company is deflecting its
responsibility as the platform has the ability to retroactively notify all its users who have seen
harmful misinformation.

How Facebook Can Inoculate Users Against Coronavirus
Misinformation
From fake cures to harmful advice that weakens
efforts to sustain social-distancing, misinformation
about the coronavirus on Facebook could potentiallycost lives and hinder attempts to fight thispandemic.
The findings above show that Facebook’s current
efforts to fight misinformation are inadequate.
Misinformation actors know that they can spread
sophisticated and malicious lies such as the fake
“Stanford Medical Advice” post claiming that
“holding your breath for ten seconds is a test forwhether one has Coronavirus” or to market a fakecure such as chlorine dioxide. They know that before
Facebook gets to fact-checking and labeling or
removing this harmful content, millions of people
will have seen the story and possibly believed it.
But Facebook can, today, act to retroactively inform
those victimized by misinformation so that even if ittakes a week to catch a malicious misinformation
story about COVID-19, all those who have seen thismisinformation are notified and receive a correction
from the WHO, the CDC, or a relevant independentfact-checker. This solution, called “Correct the
Record”, could save lives and significantly
disincentivize misinformation actors by retroactively
inoculating Facebook users against their content.

decrease belief in disinformation51 by an average of
50 percent, and by as much as 61 percent.
The academic study on corrections52, commissioned
by Avaaz, was conducted by Dr. Ethan Porter ofGeorge Washington University and Dr. Tom Wood of
Ohio State University, who are leading experts in the
study of corrections of false information.
In order to test the effectiveness of corrections, a
hyper-realistic visual model of Facebook53 wasdesigned to mimic the user experience on theplatform. Then a representative sample of theAmerican population, consisting of 2,000
anonymous participants, chosen and surveyed
independently by YouGov’s Academic, Political, &Public Affairs Research branch, were randomly
shown up to 5 pieces of false news that were basedon real, independently fact-checked examples offalse or misleading content being shared on
Facebook.
Through a randomized model, some of the users,
after seeing the false news, were shown
corrections. Some users saw only the false or
misleading content, and some saw neither. Then thesurveyed participants answered questions designed
to test whether they believed the false news.

A new academic study proves that providing social
media users who have seen false or misleading
information with corrections from fact-checkers can

In addition to the conclusion that corrections can effectively counter American social media users’ belief
in disinformation, cutting it in half, the study also found that:
The average drop in belief in false or misleading information after seeing a correction was 50% for
Republicans and 47% for Democrats.
61.5% fewer people believed a false news story that claimed President Trump said Republicans
are the dumbest group of voters.
50.7% fewer people believed a false news story that claimed the measles outbreaks werecaused by illegal immigrants after being exposed to a correction versus those that saw only the
fake item.
50% fewer people believed a false news story that claimed Greta is the highest paid activist in
the world and had made millions from her activism.
42.4% fewer people believed a false news story that claimed that a photo of a female Somali
soldier circulating on social media showed US Representative Ilhan Omar at a terrorist training
camp in Somalia.
42% fewer people believed a false news story that claimed that installing 5G towers required ahazmat suit.

AN EXAMPLE OF HOW THE CORRECTIONS TESTED WOULD LOOK IS
PRESENTED BELOW:
Users who happen to see a misinformation
post like this:will see a notification like this in theirnewsfeed and via their notification centre,
when the post is eventually fact-checked byan independent fact-checker:

And will also receive a notification like this notifying them them to review the correction:

Facebook has the capacity to design and implement a correction model similar to the above, and possibly
more sophisticated. The platform has a social responsibility to inoculate users against misinformation anddisinformation by correcting the record. But if the platform refuses to implement this solution, the WHO,
the CDC, and local health authorities throughout the world have significant public support to oblige
Facebook to protect its users:
Out of 1,000 Americans polled who participated in the study, 68.4% agree or strongly agree that
Facebook should inform users when they have been targeted with disinformation, and provide themwith corrections from independent fact-checkers.
60.8% agree or strongly agree that social media companies should be required by law to protect theirusers from disinformation, with only 18.1% disagreeing.
On average 87% of citizens in Germany, France, Spain and Italy want social media platforms to workwith fact-checkers to issue corrections to anyone exposed to false or misleading content.54
Avaaz recommends that the WHO, the CDC, local health authorities, and lawmakers throughout the world
use their leverage, and significant public support, to engage with Facebook and push the platform to“Correct the Record.”

Methodology and Data Set
To better understand the scale of coronavirusrelated misinformation on Facebook and theplatform’s handling of the “infodemic,” Avaaz
collected and monitored relevant misinformation
content in 6 languages: English, Italian, Spanish,French, Portuguese, and Arabic.
For the purpose of measuring Facebook’s statedclaims about its fact-checking efforts, theinvestigative team analysed 104 verifiably false or
misleading posts about the coronavirus that,cumulatively:
1. Were fact-checked by Facebook’s Third-Party

Fact-Checking partners or other reputable factchecking organisations55. To double-check theaccuracy of all fact checks, Avaaz hired HealthFeedback to review all samples chosen for thisstudy. Health Feedback verifies scientificclaims and is a member of the WHO-led project
Vaccine Safety Net (VSN). They are part of the
non-profit organisation, Science Feedback - athird-party fact-checking partner ofFacebook.56 57

When misinformation posts would receive afact-check warning label or be removed(researchers monitored misinformation posts
with no warning labels daily);The delay between when the misinformation
content was posted and the publication of afact-check by a Facebook partner website;
Where applicable, researchers measured thedelay between when the original
misinformation content was posted and thedate when Facebook first applied its
moderation policies on the post by either
flagging the content as misinformation or
removing it from the platform;
A list of all the misinformation content analysed forthis report can be found in the appendix.

It is important to note that although fact checks
from reputable fact-checking organisations provide
a reliable way to identify misinformation content,
fact-checkers have limited access to misinformation
2. Could cause public harm by undermining public
spreading in private Facebook groups, on private
health. Avaaz has included false andmisleading content which impacts public health Facebook profiles, and via Facebook messenger.
in the areas of:Similarly, engagement data for Facebook posts
analysed in this study are only indicative of wider
A. Preventing disease: e.g. false information
engagement with and exposure to misinformation.
on diseases, epidemics and pandemics,
In many cases, the misinformation content sampled
and anti-vaccination misinformation.
in this study were cloned, and spread by manyaccounts across Facebook, yet we can only measure
B. Prolonging life and promoting health: e.g.
the interactions with the sampled piece of content inbogus cures and/or encouragement tothis report. Still, the engagement data we estimate
discontinue recognised medical
for our sample provides some indication of thetreatments.
relative reach of different claims.
C. Creating distrust in health institutions,health organisations, medical practice, and It is important to note that, while we collect dataand compute numbers to the best of our ability, thistheir recommendations: e.g. false
analysis is neither comprehensive nor is it
information implying that clinicians or
exhaustive (we looked only at a sample of factgovernments are creating or hiding
checked misinformation posts in six languages).
health risks.
Moreover, this research is made significantly more
D. Fearmongering: health-related
challenging because Facebook does not provide
misinformation which can induce fear and investigators with access to the data needed topanic, e.g. misinformation stating thatmeasure the total response rate, moderation speed,
the coronavirus is a human-made bionumber of fact checks, and the amount of users who
weapon being used against certain
have seen or been targeted with misinformation.
communities or that Chinese products
Nonetheless, Facebook is becoming more
may contain the virus.
cooperative with civil society organisations, and wehope the platform continues this positive trend.
E. Health misinformation with the potential
of inducing discrimination against
Importantly, this study achieved its purpose byminorities: e.g. migrants are spreading
taking a step towards a better understanding of thethe virus.
scale and scope of the COVID-19 misinformation
infodemic on Facebook.
For each of the false and misleading posts andstories sampled based on the above criteria, Avaaz
researchers recorded and analysed, using both
direct observation and Crowdtangle software:

Cooperation across fields, sectors, and disciplines isneeded more than ever to fight disinformation andmisinformation. All social media platforms must
become more transparent with their users and with
The number of times each of these stories was researchers to ensure that the scale of this problem
shared and the total number of interactions it
is measured effectively, and to help public healthreceived;
officials respond in a more effectual andproportional manner to both the pandemic andAn estimate of the number of times each was“infodemic.”
58
likely viewed on the platform;
Whether each had a warning label as false andmisleading added to it by Facebook;59

VIEWERSHIP CALCULATION FOR VIDEOS ON FACEBOOKOur fake news selection contained 13 examples of Facebook fake news video content accumulating a totalof 47,317,476 views and 1,511,408 interactions between the period of 21 January 2020 and 7 April 2020.
VIEWERSHIP ESTIMATION FOR IMAGES AND TEXT
Facebook discloses the number of views for videos, but for posts containing only text and image content
the platform displays only the number interactions (which are shares, reactions and comments). Therefore,
in order to estimate viewership for text and image content, we designed a ratio based on the actual views
divided by the total interactions of the 13 Facebook misinformation videos present in this study. The ratio
applied to all images and text posts is:
47,317,476 / 1,511,408 = 31,31.
Estimated views calculation: For each image and text posts, we multiplied our views/interaction ratio of
31,31 per the highest available number of interactions for those posts or web links provided by
CrowdTangle. Adding all those estimated views together to the real Facebook video views we obtain the
final estimate of 117,714,168 estimated views for the sampled posts between the dates of 21 January
2020 and 7 April 2020.
For more information and interviews:
media@avaaz.org
Andrew Legon (CET Timezone) - andrew.legon@avaaz.org / +34 600 820 285
Ahmed Alsalman (EST Timezone) - ahmed@avaaz.org / +1 313 247 3679

MORE INFORMATION ON AVAAZ’S DISINFORMATION WORK:
Avaaz is a global democratic movement with morethan 56 million members around the world. All funds
powering the organisation come from small
donations from individual members.
This report is part of an ongoing Avaaz campaign toprotect people and democracies from the dangers of
disinformation and misinformation on social media.
As part of that effort, Avaaz investigations revealeda disinformation network with half a billion views
ahead of the European Union elections in 2019;
prompted Facebook to take down a network
reaching 1.7m people in Spain days before the 2019
national election; released a report on the fake news
(reaching 105 million views) that fueled the Yellow
Vests crisis in France; exposed a massive
disinformation network (28 pages with 12.6 million
interactions) during the Brazil presidential electionsin 2018; revealed the role anti-vaccination
misinformation is having on reducing the vaccine
rate in Brazil; and released a report on how YouTube
is driving millions of people to watch climate
misinformation videos.
Avaaz’s work on disinformation is rooted in the firm
belief that fake news proliferating on social media
poses a grave threat to democracy, the health andwell-being of communities, and the security ofvulnerable people. Avaaz reports openly on its
disinformation research so it can alert and educatesocial media platforms, regulators, and the public,
and to help society advance smart solutions to
defend the integrity of our elections and our
democracies. You can find our reports and learn
more about our work by visiting:https://secure.avaaz.org/campaign/en/disinfo_hub/.

Annex
Table with the 20 most significant examples of misinformation content referenced in this report.

Delay of fact check(where applicable)

Fact check (linked
to article)* = Facebook Third
Party Fact Checker

Yes(4 days after fact
check)

2

Fatabyyano ‫*ﻓﺘﺒﯿﻨﻮا‬ArabicYes

6

Fatabyyano ‫*ﻓﺘﺒﯿﻨﻮا‬Hold your breath for 10 seconds to test
yourself for coronavirus

Arabic

No

-

AFP*

UNICEF instructions to protect fromcoronavirus: gargle with salt water...

Arabic

Yes

11

AFP*

The coronavirus pandemic can be stopped
with high doses of vitamin C

EnglishYes

10

Lead Stories*

Coronavirus destroyed by chlorine dioxide

EnglishYes

14

Factcheck.org*

Oregano oil proves effective against
coronavirus

EnglishNo-

Washington Post

Black people are resistant to Coronavirus

English

Yes

1

AFP*

VP Pence urges people with coronavirus to go
to the police

EnglishYes

1

Lead Stories*

Fake News Post

Language

Gaza is the only place in the world free of theCoronavirus

ArabicThe hot air produced by hair dryers canprevent coronavirus

Facebook warninglabel showing on
post?

Garlic cures coronavirus

EnglishYes

10

Factcheck.org*

Information regarding Coronavirus:
temperatures above 26/27° kill the virus

FrenchYes

4

Les Décodeurs duMonde*

Coronavirus was created and planned by the
WHO and the Gates Foundation

Italian

No

-

Open

Use natural defenses against viruses andbacteria - staying home is useless

Italian

No

-

Open

Warning: coronavirus found on packages from
China

Portguese

Yes

27

AFP*

Vaccine that cures coronavirus in 3 hours is
readyPortugueseYes(10 days after fact
check)-

Agência Lupa*

793 deaths in Italy today, 232 children among
them

PortugueseYes(1 day after fact
check)

4

Aos Fatos*

Bolsonaro says that hydroxychloroquine has
been proved as cure for coronavirus

Portuguese

No-

BoatosDoctor Mario Pesaresi reveals inhaling steam
as a natural remedy for coronavirus

SpanishNo

Avoid more deaths! Gargle with disinfectant

Spanish

Yes

1

AFP*

Coronavirus was created in the Institute ofVirology in Wuhan

SpanishYes(13 days after fact
check)

9

Maldito Bulo*

Maldito Bulo*

Endnotes
1. WHO, Munich Security Conference, 15 February 2020, https://www.who.int/dg/speeches/detail/munich-security-conference
2. CBS interview with Sheryl Sandberg: Facebook is removing fake coronavirus news "quickly", COO Sheryl Sandberg says,
Facebook Announcement on: Combating COVID-19 Misinformation Across Our Apps, Mark Zuckerberg Press Briefing - March
18th, https://about.fb.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/03/March-18-2020-Press-Call-Transcript.pdf 
3. See Methodology and Data Set section for detail. 
4. For our study, we analysed only misinformation content that either had primary or direct fact checks - namely, fact checks
that linked or referred to specific posts or articles). For those pieces of content that did not have primary or direct fact checks,
we applied findings from primary fact checks to identical health claims made in those posts. 
5. Our research period covered the actions and statements issued by Facebook between 16 January 2020 and 14 April 2020.
However, based on conversations with representatives of the platform, we are encouraged by efforts the platform isexperimenting with to improve the policies and processes that reflect some of the recommendations mentioned below. 
6. Facebook, Combating COVID-19 Misinformation Across Our Apps, 25 March 2020, https://about.fb.com/news/2020/03/com
bating-covid-19-misinformation/ 
7. By moving to alert those who see misinformation, the platform is now doing more than any of the leading social media
platforms to inform users about false content they have encountered and starts fixing many of the policy gaps highlighted
above. 
8. See Methodology and Data Set section. 
9. The original post was taken down after Avaaz shared it with Facebook https://www.facebook.com/permalink.php?story_fbid=2733027656745577&id=1555031211211900&__tn__=-R 
10. The original post was taken down after Avaaz shared it with Facebook https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=2937680
962950647&set=a.152802728105165&type=3&theater 
11. The original post was taken down after Avaaz shared it with Facebook https://www.facebook.com/groups/49955439678612
6/permalink/3476737632401106 
12. http://archive.ph/wip/d78wi 
13. Lead Stories, Fact Check: VP Pence Did NOT Urge People With Coronavirus To Go To The Police, 2 March 2020, https://leadstories.com/hoax-alert/2020/03/Fact-Check-VP-Pence-Did-NOT-Urge-People-With-Coronavirus-To-Go-To-The-Police.html 
14. https://www.facebook.com/Hayfaalhusseini/videos/255658768781237/?__tn__=-R 
15. The original post was taken down after Avaaz shared it with Facebook https://www.facebook.com/holisticn8healing/photos/
a.362593477866554/605012106958022/?type=3&__tn__=-R 
16. For the purposes of the "Correct the Record" academic study, referenced in full later in this report, we used the terms"disinformation", "misinformation", and "false news" interchangeably to mean verifiably false or misleading information thathas the potential to cause public harm such as undermining democracy or public health. For the purposes of the investigation
presented in this briefing, we relied on a definition of "misinformation" described in full in the Methodology and Data Set
section below. 
17. Facebook announcement, 25 March 2020: Combating COVID-19 Misinformation Across Our Apps 
18. http://archive.ph/S9n1z 
19. http://archive.ph/hqKF5 
20. http://archive.ph/OF0Ur 
21. As available from CrowdTangle 
22. Facebook announcement, 25 March 2020: Combating COVID-19 Misinformation Across Our Apps 
23. Avaaz shared the list of misinformation posts that could potentially lead to imminent physical harm with Facebook on 8 April
2020 to help ensure that they would be speedily removed. In response, Facebook has, as of 14 April 2020, taken down 17 of
the posts we flagged. 
24. CBS News interview with Facebook's COO, Sheryl Sandberg, 18 March 2020, https://www.cbsnews.com/news/facebook-cor
onavirus-fake-news-coo-sheryl-sandberg/. 
25. "We remove coronavirus-related misinformation that could contribute to imminent physical harm. We’ve removed harmful
misinformation since 2018, including false information about the measles in Samoa where it could have furthered an
outbreak and rumors about the polio vaccine in Pakistan where it risked harm to health aid workers. Since January, we’ve
applied this policy to misinformation about the coronavirus to remove posts that make false claims about cures, treatments,
the availability of essential services or the location and severity of the outbreak. We regularly update the claims that weremove based on guidance from the WHO and other health authorities. For example, we recently started removing claims thatphysical distancing doesn’t help prevent the spread of the coronavirus. We’ve also banned ads and commerce listings that
imply a product guarantees a cure or prevents people from contracting COVID-19." Facebook, Combating COVID-19
Misinformation Across Our Apps, 25 March 2020, https://about.fb.com/news/2020/03/combating-covid-19-misinformation/ 26. The original post was taken down after Avaaz shared it with Facebook https://www.facebook.com/themegavitaminman/phot
os/a.154722701400928/1234263616780159/?type=3&__tn__=-R 
27. http://archive.ph/7ZsU5 
28. The original post was taken down after Avaaz shared it with Facebook https://www.facebook.com/themegavitaminman/phot
os/a.154722701400928/1234263616780159/?type=3&__tn__=-R 
29. Lead Stories, Fake News: Vitamin C Does NOT Slow Or Stop Coronavirus, 6 February 2020, https://leadstories.com/hoax-alert/2020/02/Fake-News-Vitamin-C-Does-NOT-Slow-Or-Stop-Coronavirus.html 
30. Facebook removed the original post after Avaaz shared the link with the company's team dedicated to enforcing its antimisinformation policies on 8 April 2020. 
31. Facebook, Combating COVID-19 Misinformation Across Our Apps, 25 March 2020, https://about.fb.com/news/2020/03/com
bating-covid-19-misinformation/ 
32. http://archive.vn/C7ZaU 
33. New York Times, 7 Answers to Questions About the Malaria Drug Trump Keeps Pushing, 9 April 2020, https://www.nytimes.c
om/article/coronavirus-hydroxychloroquine-malaria.html 
34. Vox, Trump’s reckless promotion of hydroxychloroquine to fight coronavirus, explained, 26 March 2020, https://www.vox.com/2020/3/26/21193912/trump-hydroxychloroquine-coronavirus-treatment 
35. This video was also posted on YouTube and appears to have been taken down by the platform. Original YouTube link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t1oXq5GJySM 
36. Facebook, Combating COVID-19 Misinformation Across Our Apps, 25 March 2020, https://about.fb.com/news/2020/03/com
bating-covid-19-misinformation/ 
37. http://archive.is/njLDZ 
38. Facebook, Combating COVID-19 Misinformation Across Our Apps, 25 March 2020, https://about.fb.com/news/2020/03/com
bating-covid-19-misinformation/ 
39. The original post was taken down after Avaaz shared it with Facebook https://www.facebook.com/permalink.php?story_fbid=2733027656745577&id=1555031211211900&__tn__=-R 
40. Avaaz shared the list of misinformation posts that could potentially lead to imminent physical harm with Facebook on 8 April
2020 to help ensure that they would be speedily removed. In response, Facebook has, as of 14 April 2020, taken down 17 of
the posts we flagged. 
41. Facebook, Combating COVID-19 Misinformation Across Our Apps, 25 March 2020, https://about.fb.com/news/2020/03/com
bating-covid-19-misinformation/ 
42. https://www.facebook.com/Hayfaalhusseini/videos/255658768781237/?__tn__=-R 
43. Facebook, Combating COVID-19 Misinformation Across Our Apps, 25 March 2020, https://about.fb.com/news/2020/03/com
bating-covid-19-misinformation/ 
44. https://archive.md/QI0sV 
45. The original post was taken down after Avaaz shared it with Facebook https://www.facebook.com/groups/11043917599131
3/permalink/1060218944346660 
46. CBS interview with Sheryl Sandberg: Facebook is removing fake coronavirus news "quickly", COO Sheryl Sandberg says,
Facebook Announcement on: Combating COVID-19 Misinformation Across Our Apps, Mark Zuckerberg Press Briefing - March
18th, https://about.fb.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/03/March-18-2020-Press-Call-Transcript.pdf 
47. Facebook, Combating COVID-19 Misinformation Across Our Apps, 25 March 2020, https://about.fb.com/news/2020/03/com
bating-covid-19-misinformation/ 
48. Associated Press, Ability to hold your breath 10 seconds is not a test for coronavirus, 12 March 2020, https://apnews.com/afs:Content:8635070312 
49. Stanford Health Center, Novel Coronavirus (COVID-19) Resource Center, https://stanfordhealthcare.org/stanford-health-care-now/2020/novel-coronavirus.html 
50. http://archive.vn/vP4fB 
51. For the purposes of the "Correct the Record" academic study, we used the terms "disinformation", "misinformation", and"false news" interchangeably to mean verifiably false or misleading information that has the potential to cause public harm,
for example by undermining democracy or public health. For the purposes of the investigation presented in this briefing, we
relied on a definition of "misinformation" described in full in the Methodology & Data section below. 
52. Note: This white paper explains the findings of the research conducted by Dr. Wood and Dr. Porter. The academic study will be
published independently by the authors. 
53. Visit Factbook, https://factbook.org/ - to see how the hyper-realistic model used to mimic Facebook in the study. 
54. See https://secure.avaaz.org/act/media.php?press_id=932 
55. Spanish
Chequeado (Argentina)
Maldito Bulo (Spain)
AFP Factual (various Spanish speaking countries)
Portuguese
AFP Checamos
E farsas
BoatosPolitica Estadao
Aos Fatos
Lupa (Brazil)
Observador (Portugal)
French
AFP France
Le Monde (France)
ItalianOpen
Butac
Bufale (Italy)
ArabicFatabyyano
AFP MENA (MENA)
EnglishFull Fact (UK)
Washington Post
Factcheck
Politifact
Lead Stories
Health Feedback
AFP United States
Snopes (USA) 
56. https://sciencefeedback.co 
57. WHO, Global Vaccine Safety - Health Feedback, https://www.who.int/vaccine_safety/initiative/communication/network/hea
lthfeedback/en/ 
58. For videos we include the views reported by Facebook. Our misinformation content selection contained 14 examples of false
video content that have accumulated a total of 47,327,476 views. We followed Facebook’s definition of what constitutes a"view," that is, a viewing experience that lasts 3 seconds or longer. For posts containing only text and image content theplatform displays only the number of shares and other interactions, such as likes or comments. Therefore, in order toestimate viewership for text and image content we designed a metric based on the publicly available statistics of theFacebook videos analysed in our study, taking into account the total number of video views and dividing it by the total numberof video shares. Facebook reports a "video view" only after 3 seconds, while an image or text can be considered as "viewed"
and having an actual impact in less than 3 seconds (e.g. just scrolling by an image of a bleeding woman, police brutality orclaims of censorship). Therefore, the estimation of total views in this study is very likely lower than the actual total
viewership of all content and therefore is to be seen as a conservative figure. 
59. 1. Fact checking articles shown as "Related Articles" below the post, 2. a pop-up notification titled "False information in thispost" linking the fact checking article and 3. a gray overlay titled "False Information Checked by Independent Fact Checkers"
linking to (a) fact checking article(s) 