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Facebook’s algorithm helped networks spreading health misinformation reach 3.8bn views in last year - Avaaz report 
*Report finds content from top 10 websites spreading health misinformation had almost 4 times as many views on Facebook as equivalent content from 10 leading health authorities, including WHO and CDC.*
*Views of content hit the highest level in April -- just as COVID-19 crisis peaked in many countries*

[LONDON]  August 19th -- Facebook’s algorithm helped networks spreading health misinformation reach a staggering 3.8 billion estimated views in the last year, peaking alongside the COVID-19 crisis, a new report from Avaaz reveals. The report shows how Facebook’s efforts to tackle health misinformation are being strongly undermined by its own systems, with content from the top 10 websites spreading health misinformation gaining almost 4 times as many views on Facebook as equivalent content from the websites of 10 leading health authorities, such as WHO and the CDC. At the height of the pandemic, top Facebook executives did a round of TV interviews pledging that Facebook would help keep people ‘safe and informed’. But Avaaz’s report found that despite Facebook’s emergency solutions to the Covid-crisis, views of content from websites spreading health misinformation peaked at 460 million estimated views in April 2020 -- just as the pandemic escalated around the world.

Fadi Quran, Campaign Director at Avaaz, said:  “Facebook’s algorithm is a major threat to public health. Mark Zuckerberg promised to provide reliable information during the pandemic, but his algorithm is sabotaging those efforts by driving many of Facebook’s 2.7 billion users to health misinformation spreading networks. This infodemic will make the pandemic worse unless Facebook detoxifies its algorithm and provides corrections to everyone exposed to these viral lies.”
The report details a two-step solution to ‘quarantine’ misinformation and those spreading it at scale:
  • Step 1: Correct the Record by providing all people who have seen misinformation on the platform with independently fact-checked retroactive corrections. Research from George Washington University and The Ohio State University, commissioned by Avaaz, shows that this can decrease belief in misinformation by an average of almost 50%.
  • Step 2: Detox the Algorithm by downgrading misinformation posts and systematic misinformation actors in users' News Feeds, decreasing their reach by up to 80%.
Prof. Dr. Frank Ulrich Montgomery, Chair of Council, World Medical Association - which represents over 10 million physicians worldwide, said:
"This pandemic should be a powerful reminder of how successful vaccines have been, but instead anti-vaxxers are using Facebook to spread toxic lies and conspiracy theories to millions of people. Mark Zuckerberg must act to stop health misinformation."

Dr. João Miguel Grenho, Secretary-General, European Union of Medical Specialists - which represents 1.6 million medical specialists, said:
"Facebook is rife with medical misinformation - in the middle of a pandemic that makes the platform a public health threat. Health workers around the world, our families, and our patients have the right to be shielded from toxic misinformation. Mark Zuckerberg must take immediate action to stand with us to stop this infodemic, otherwise, the number of people poisoned against taking a vaccine will be too high for us to beat this pandemic."

Other findings from the report include:
  • Only 16% of all health misinformation analyzed had a warning label from Facebook. Despite content being fact-checked, the other 84% of articles and posts sampled in this report remain online without warnings.
  • The top ‘superspreaders’ of health misinformation on Facebook, which include RealFarmacy, one of the biggest websites spreading health misinformation and GreenMedInfo, a website that presents health misinformation as science.
  • Facebook public pages act as one of the main engines for sharing content from websites spreading health misinformation, accounting for 43% of the total estimated views on Facebook.
  • The top 42 Facebook pages spreading content from the networks in this report are followed by more than 28 million people and generated an estimated 800 million views alone.
  • Some of the most egregious fakes shared included:
    • An article claiming a Bill Gates-backed polio vaccination program led to the paralysis of almost half a million children in India (8.4 million views)
    • Articles containing bogus cures for deadly diseases, like colloidal silver for Ebola (4.5 million views).
    • An article with the headline “Two Emergency Medicine Doctors On Why Quarantine ‘Just Doesn’t Make Sense,’” containing multiple false claims to support the argument that, rather than protecting people during a pandemic, quarantine actually harms public health (2.4 million views). 
The research focused on actors mainly spanning across five countries — the United States, the United Kingdom, France, Germany, and Italy --  meaning the networks and views highlighted in the report represent a small sample of the global problem. Previous Avaaz investigations have found health misinformation going viral across Brazil, Spain, the Middle East, and North Africa.

Recent studies have shown the dangers posed by health misinformation. According to a recent study in the American Journal of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene, at least 800 people died around the world - and almost 6000 were hospitalized - because of coronavirus-related misinformation, in just the first three months of this year.

Notes to editor: