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| (Image Source: Gadgets Magazine/Department Of Health) |
One of the most important things Filipino households need to do in order to prevent the spread of COVID-19 in their homes and communities is to know and understand the right information and news stories about the pandemic as mandated by the Department of Health's BIDA Solusyon Sa COVID-19 campaign aside from wearing face mask and face shields, washing your hands after touching and using any object in the house, and physical distancing of at least one meter apart. Despite the encouragement, dangerous and false information about COVID-19 and even misleading content regarding the pandemic are still lurking around the digital space which literally caused fear and uncertainty towards Filipino netizens.
This is where the world's biggest social media and tech companies are stepping in to support the DOH's recently-launched #CheckTheFAQs campaign emphasizing the importance of accurate information about the coronavirus disease by raising awareness for the initiative which includes a page on the health department's website that provides relevant and reliable information about the pandemic and even the vaccines. In a press statement, Facebook Philippines' public policy head Claire Amador said, “We will continue working closely with global and national health authorities, including the Philippine Department of Health, to make it easy for people to find authoritative COVID-19 and vaccine information across Facebook’s apps. We are also taking action against accounts that break our COVID-19 and vaccine rules—including reducing their distribution or removing them from our platform."
For its part, Google has been taking down harmful and misleading content across its products, raising authoritative information on Search and YouTube, providing ad grants and supporting quality vaccine news reporting. More than 700,000 videos from around the world regarding dangerous and false information about COVID-19 were removed. On the other hand, fast-rising social media application TikTok collaborates with fact-checking partners and removes misinformation that violates community guidelines while microblogging site Twitter implemented new policies to apply labels to tweets that may contain misinformation surrounding COVID-19 in its efforts to remove such.
“Our information panels on YouTube have been viewed 400 billion times, making them a valuable source of credible information,” said Google Philippines country director Bernadette Nacario in a press statement. For TikTok Philippines public policy head Kristopher Rada, "We take the responsibility of helping counter inauthentic, misleading or false information." According to Twitter Southeast Asia's head of public policy, government and philantrophy Monwanee Anpolpittayanant, “We believe that giving access to factual information is integral in building public confidence on vaccines, as well as keeping the integrity of public conversations around health."
