US doctors write to Facebook urging it disclose data on COVID-19 misinformation: Report

On Thursday, November 4, several healthcare professionals in the United States urged social media giant Facebook to release all data linked to COVID-19 misinformation that is currently available on the platform. The medical professionals emphasised the significance of countering fraudulent claims after the COVID-19 vaccine was made available for children, according to a report by The Hill.

More than 500 health care professionals signed the 'Doctors For America' letter, including medical professors from New York University, Columbia University, and Johns Hopkins Medicine. They stated in the letter to the company, now known as Meta, that they "just cannot afford another lethal round of pandemic and vaccine misinformation," as reported by The Hill. 

Lawmakers in Washington have also pressed Facebook to take action against misleading statements regarding the coronavirus. For months, Democrats in Congress have pressed the social media giant to do more to address the spread of vaccination disinformation, and Surgeon General Vivek Murthy issued an advisory in July, stating health misinformation as an "urgent threat."

The letter also read that Facebook must act quickly and decisively to halt the spread of COVID-19 misinformation on all its platforms. It also asked the company to provide all data about the extent, reach, and content of this disinformation, as well as its impact on users, for evaluation by independent public health experts. Notably, the letter comes after an internal business document was released by a whistleblower. Frances Haugen, a former Facebook employee, disclosed tens of thousands of internal papers detailing the company's struggles with user safety and misinformation. 

Facebook defends its COVID-19 misinformation policies

Meanwhile, Meta has defended the COVID-19 misinformation policies it has in place. Following the Biden administration's criticism of social media companies for failing to do enough to combat false claims, Guy Rosen, Facebook's vice president of integrity, wrote a blog post claiming that the platform had removed over "18 million cases of COVID-19 misinformation since the pandemic began," reported The Hill. 

Facebook's fact-checking collaboration, which tries to flag and restrict the prominence of discredited content, was also highlighted in the post. However, the firm neither acknowledged the extent of the misinformation found on its platform, nor has it shared the data that health care experts and others have been requesting for months. 

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