[ad_1]
The World Health Organization said on May 1 that it was working with social media companies in an attempt to nullify misinformation about the coronavirus pandemic, even in more joyous and popular apps among teens.
The WHO said it had started working with TikTok and Snapchat since the pandemic broke out in an attempt to reach teenage and young users of the social messaging app.
“We are fighting misinformation every day,” said Andy Pattison, digital solutions manager at the UN health agency.
On social media, “the fake stories outweigh the truth on every subject” as to how far and how fast they spread, he said at a virtual news conference.
Therefore, the WHO is trying to combat falsehoods with science-based messages through the most widely used social media applications, he said.
Aleksandra Kuzmanovic, WHO’s social media manager, said the organization had also established a presence on TikTok and Snapchat during the Covid-19 pandemic, because most of its followers on previous platforms were in the age range of 25 to 35 years.
“At TikTok and Snapchat, we are now reaching much younger audiences,” he said.
“It was important for us to communicate with teens about how they can protect themselves.
“We are a science-based organization that has serious information and TikTok is a platform that is perceived as fun: People share fun videos and information.”
Kuzmanovic said the challenge was how to transmit serious and educational information about TikTok.
“With your help, we tweaked some of our video products to make them suitable for the platform,” he said.
Google, YouTube filtering
The WHO has its own Covid-19 “Mythbusters” page, which directly debunks popular rumors about the virus, which has killed more than 230,000 people worldwide and infected more than 3.2 million.
Pattison said the WHO was working on chatbot functions with WhatsApp, Viber, Facebook Messenger and Apple Business Chat, but hoped to open channels in up to 30 applications to take into account the most popular ones in various countries, such as Line in Japan.
“It is really important that we reach millions of people directly in their own language,” he said.
Pattison said the WHO was partnering with YouTube to try to remove harmful misinformation and remove rumors without scientific foundation, in a two-way relationship.
YouTube provides WHO with information on current Covid-19 rumors and the UN agency tells them which are harmless and which could be dangerous.
Pattison said Google was working with the WHO to make Covid-19 searches produce reliable media news and local health information in the country.
“They have been very good at finding the right balance,” he said. – AFP Relaxnews
[ad_2]
