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Facebook has been doing its part to combat misinformation during the election cycle and coronavirus pandemic. That has led the social media platform from banning a conspiracy news website for spreading misinformation about COVID-19.
The company has banned the website Natural News which is known for spreading conspiracy theories. According to NBC News, the website has been banned for using troll farms from North Macedonia and the Philippines to spread conspiracies about the coronavirus’s links to 5G, Bill Gates, and Donald Trump’s drug of choice, hydroxychloroquine.
While looking into the troll farms, Facebook also discovered they were the biggest pushers of the conspiracy documentary Plandemic, which spread like wildfire across social media which pushed even more conspiracy theories like alleging the government was behind the virus in order to push vaccines to control people.
“We removed these Pages for spammy and abusive behavior, not the content they posted. They misled people about the popularity of their posts and relied on content farms in North Macedonia and the Philippines,” a statement to NBC News read.
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The coronavirus mainly comes from animals and a majority of those who were infected early either worked at or frequently visited the Huanan seafood wholesale market in Wuhan, according to The Guardian. The virus is similar to Severe acute respiratory syndrome (Sars) and Middle Eastern respiratory syndrome (Mers).
The Wuhan coronavirus is transmitted from person to person through “droplet transmission.” That means an infected person can pass the virus by sneezing or coughing on another person as well as by direct contact.
While a majority of the cases have been detected in the United States and China — with more than 100,000 deaths in the United States — it has now reached many countries around the world. It has also been confirmed in Italy, Australia, Canada, France, Germany, and many other eastern countries.
