The ongoing coronavirus pandemic has forced companies to take drastic measures to curb the spread of misinformation. Now, Instagram has confirmed its decision to remove COVID-19 related content from recommendations.
In case you didn’t know, Instagram has a recommendation/explore tab that shows popular content from creators worldwide. The tab includes both images and videos but the company has recently decided to filter out content related to coronavirus unless it’s shared by a creditable health organization.
We will also start to downrank content in feed and Stories that has been rated false by third-party-fact checkers.
– Instagram (via Reuters)
Last week Twitter announced a similar measure to curb the spread of fake news and misinformation. Facebook has even offered the World Health Organization (WHO) free ad space to spread out creditable information surrounding the coronavirus pandemic.