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Keeping People Safe and Informed About the Coronavirus

By Kang-Xing Jin, Head of Health

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Summary

Facebook is supporting the global public health community’s work to keep people safe and informed during the coronavirus public health crisis. We’re also working to address the long-term impacts by supporting industries in need and making it easier for people to find and offer help in their communities. 

Here’s an overview of how we’re providing access to accurate information, supporting relief efforts and keeping people connected. We’ll continue to add to this post as we announce updates.

1. Ensuring everyone has access to accurate information and removing harmful content

2. Supporting health and economic relief efforts

3. Keeping people connected

Latest News

Update on December 18, 2020 at 4:00AM PT:

Updating Our Ad Policy for COVID-19 Vaccines

Given the recent approval of COVID-19 vaccines, we want people to be able to safely promote information about these vaccines on Facebook. We will now allow ads that highlight the ability of a COVID-19 vaccine to prevent someone from contracting the virus, as well as ads promoting ways to safely access a COVID-19 vaccine. We’ll continue to prohibit content that tries to exploit the pandemic for commercial gain. And ads or organic posts that promote the sale of a COVID-19 vaccine, such as attempts to sell COVID-19 vaccine kits or expedited access to the vaccine, will be rejected. We will also reject ads that claim the vaccine is a cure for the virus.  

It will take some time to train our systems and teams on these policies, and we expect enforcement to ramp up over the coming weeks and months. 

Update on December 11, 2020 at 10:00AM PT:

Providing Aid to Diverse Suppliers through Receivables Financing

In response to the ongoing impact of the COVID-19 pandemic – particularly the challenges facing minority and women-owned businesses – we recently launched The Facebook Receivables Financing Program to support US-based suppliers. This one-year financing program allows minority, women, veteran, LGBTQ and disability-owned companies that are headquartered in the US and have been paid directly by Facebook in 2019 or 2020 to have their invoices paid now instead of in the 60 to 120 day period it normally takes to get paid for work they’ve already done. Our goal with this program is to help level the playing field by providing businesses with access to more working capital.

We’ll do this by providing immediate cash for work suppliers have done and pay they’re owed by other, non-Facebook, companies. Suppliers can upload eligible invoices to the Receivables Financing platform and get funded in a few days. We partnered with Supplier Success, a minority-owned business with extensive experience providing receivables financing, to administer our Receivable Financing platform and collaborated with Crowdz.io to operate a seamless and secure platform to safely buy receivables. Together, Supplier Success and Crowdz.io will collect the suppliers’ invoices from their customers, and Facebook will reinvest the collected receivables to purchase additional invoices. Facebook is not making any return on these funds. 

Update on December 3, 2020 at 6:00AM PT:

Removing False Claims About COVID-19 Vaccines

Given the recent news that COVID-19 vaccines will soon be rolling out around the world, over the coming weeks we will start removing false claims about these vaccines that have been debunked by public health experts on Facebook and Instagram. This is another way that we are applying our policy to remove misinformation about the virus that could lead to imminent physical harm. This could include false claims about the safety, efficacy, ingredients or side effects of the vaccines. For example, we will remove false claims that COVID-19 vaccines contain microchips, or anything else that isn’t on the official vaccine ingredient list. We will also remove conspiracy theories about COVID-19 vaccines that we know today are false: like specific populations are being used without their consent to test the vaccine’s safety. We will not be able to start enforcing these policies overnight. Since it’s early and facts about COVID-19 vaccines will continue to evolve, we will regularly update the claims we remove based on guidance from public health authorities as they learn more. 

We will also continue to help people stay informed about these vaccines by promoting authoritative sources of information through our COVID-19 Information Center.

Update on November 30, 2020 at 3:00PM PT:

Mark Zuckerberg is live with Dr. Anthony Fauci, America’s top infectious disease expert, to discuss progress toward a COVID-19 vaccine and how we can slow the spread of the virus this holiday season.

Update on October 5, 2020 at 8:50AM PT:

Connecting People to Mental Health Resources

Experts agree that COVID-19 has exacerbated mental health challenges around the world, and the repercussions will be felt for years to come. We’ve been working with leading authorities around the world — like NAMI, Kids Help Phone and It’s OK to Talk — to invest in the critical areas of mental health support, including handling financial stress, parenting support, coping with loss and grief, managing substance use and taking care of overall emotional health. Today we’re introducing Emotional Health, a centralized resource center on the Facebook app with tips and information from leading experts. The resource will be available globally, with locally relevant information from mental health officials. 

Learn more about how we’re making it easier for people to get the support they need for themselves and others who might be struggling. 

Screenshots of Emotional Health Resource Center in the Facebook app

Update on August 19, 2020 at 10:05AM PT:

Allowing the Promotion and Sale of Hand Sanitizer and Surface Disinfecting Wipes

In March, we temporarily banned ads and commerce listings for hand sanitizer and surface disinfecting wipes to help protect against scams, inflated prices and hoarding. Since then, we’ve continued to monitor trends and activity around COVID-19 to better understand how people are using our platform and advertising tools during the pandemic. Today we’re scaling back this temporary ban to allow people to promote and trade hand sanitizer and surface disinfecting wipes on our apps.

Update on August 17, 2020 at 7:40AM PT:

Supporting Teachers, Parents and Students This Back-To-School Season

Back-to-school looks different this year due to COVID-19, and parents, teachers and students around the world are facing a myriad of challenges, from remote teaching and learning, balancing work and home responsibilities, and most importantly, maintaining the safety and well-being of everyone involved. To help, we’re launching an Educator Hub to support teachers and providing resources across our apps to help people stay connected and take care of each other. The Educator Hub will help teachers find or build their online communities and discover guides and other resources for the classroom and beyond. Learn more. 

Update on July 16, 2020 at 2:02PM PT:

Mark Zuckerberg is live with Dr. Anthony Fauci, America’s top infectious disease expert. They’ll discuss the US’ response to COVID-19, progress on a vaccine, and what we need to do next to stop the spread of the virus.

Update on July 15, 2020 at 10:00AM PT:

We continue working to keep people safe and informed about COVID-19. We have connected over 2 billion people to resources from health authorities through our COVID-19 Information Center and pop-ups on Facebook and Instagram with over 600 million people clicking through to learn more. Since January, people have raised over $100 million for COVID-19 related fundraisers on Facebook and Instagram. Over half of those donations were under $25.

Facts About COVID-19 

To further limit the spread of misinformation, this week we are launching a dedicated section of the COVID-19 Information Center called Facts about COVID-19. It will debunk common myths that have been identified by the World Health Organization such as drinking bleach will prevent the coronavirus or that taking hydroxychloroquine can prevent COVID-19. This is the latest step in our ongoing work to fight misinformation about the pandemic.  

Screenshots of reminder to wear a face covering and Facts About COVID-19

Global Reminders to Wear Face Coverings 

With the rise in COVID-19 cases in the US and in many other parts of the world, we are expanding our alerts reminding people to wear face coverings internationally as recommended by health authorities. These alerts have been running at the top of Facebook and Instagram in the US since early July. Starting this week, we will expand them to more countries globally.

Update on July 2, 2020 at 9:00AM PT:

With the rise in COVID-19 cases in the US, we’re putting an alert at the top of Facebook and Instagram to remind everyone to wear face coverings and find more prevention tips from the CDC in our COVID-19 Information Center.  Screenshots of Reminder to wear masks on Facebook and Instagram

Update on June 24, 2020 at 5:00AM PT:

Launching Summer of Support

Over the past few months, many businesses have changed the way they operate, and many more are looking for ways to pivot and move forward. Today we’re kicking off our Boost with Facebook Summer of Support program to help millions of people get training in the digital skills they need to succeed. Over the next six weeks, we’ll offer free online training, live sessions and conversations on topics such as reimagining customer support, transitioning from brick and mortar to digital, and more. You can learn more about Summer of Support and other ways we’re supporting businesses here.  

Update on June 11, 2020 at 12:01AM PT:

Expanding Our Blood Donations Feature

COVID-19 has led to blood shortages around the world due to shelter in place orders limiting the ability for people to donate. To help, we’re expanding our Facebook Blood Donations feature to connect more people to their local blood banks, so they know when there is a shortage and where it is safe to donate. The Blood Donations feature is now available in South Africa, Senegal, Kenya, Burkina Faso, Côte d’Ivoire and Egypt as well as the US, India, Brazil, Pakistan and Bangladesh. We’re also working with partners in India and Brazil to connect people with more local blood banks and hospitals through the Blood Donations feature. And in the US, we’re excited to announce a new partnership with AABB to connect people to hospital blood banks.

Screenshots of the Blood Donations feature

Update on June 10, 2020 at 10:05AM PT:

Allowing the Promotion of Non-Medical Masks on Facebook and Instagram

Since the World Health Organization declared COVID-19 a global pandemic, governments and authorities around the world have evolved their guidance on the need to wear masks. In March, we temporarily banned ads and commerce listings for masks on our apps to help protect against scams, misleading medical claims, medical supply shortages, inflated prices and hoarding. Since then, we’ve continued to monitor trends and activity around COVID-19 to better understand how people are using our platform and advertising tools during the pandemic.

Many health authorities now advise wearing non-medical masks – and in some places masks are required for activities like taking public transportation or visiting a store – and we’ve seen people and businesses of all sizes working to fill this need. So we’re scaling back this temporary ban to allow people to promote and trade non-medical masks, including those that are homemade or handmade, in organic posts, ads and commerce listings on Facebook and Instagram. We will still maintain a temporary ban on selling medical masks, such as surgical or N95 masks, to prevent people from exploiting the pandemic for financial gain. You can learn more about how we define non-medical masks and advertiser restrictions for these ads here.

Update on June 3, 2020 at 12:01AM PT:

Releasing New Data for Good Tools

Today we’re releasing new visualizations and datasets publicly to help researchers, NGOs and others combat the COVID-19 pandemic. You can learn more about these and our other Data for Good tools here.

Update on May 4, 2020 at 9:38AM PT:

Tomorrow on #GivingTuesdayNow we’re expanding Community Help to make it easier for people to support local businesses and nonprofits. Starting tomorrow, people will be able to find gift cards and vouchers to support local businesses, donate to local nonprofit fundraisers, sign up to become a blood donor and find local job opportunities — all in Community Help.

Update on April 22, 2020 at 6:30AM PT:

Partnering with ITDRC and NetHope to Address the Digital Divide

The coronavirus pandemic has underscored the importance of internet connectivity. While many people have shifted their lives online, there are still more than 3.5 billion people, including more than 18 million Americans, who lack reliable internet access. To help, we’re partnering with the Information Technology Disaster Resource Center (ITDRC) and NetHope to provide internet connectivity to communities most impacted by COVID-19. The goal of these partnerships is to better understand the unique barriers these communities face in getting online and create the programs and infrastructure needed to increase the availability and affordability of high-quality internet access. 

  • We’re providing a $2 million grant to support ITDRC’s projectConnect initiative which will help rural and underserved communities in the US gain access to the internet. We’re also sharing insights from Facebook Disease Prevention Maps to help ITDRC better understand options for internet coverage in specific regions and more quickly determine the type of support needed to address connectivity challenges.
  • We’re providing a $260,000 grant to support NetHope’s COVID-19 response. In addition, through sharing our Disease Prevention Maps, we’ll help NetHope identify the world’s most vulnerable and affected communities, including migrants and refugees, in order to provide them with protective health equipment and internet connectivity kits. 
Update on April 21, 2020 at 3:30PM PT:

Update on Content Review Work

Throughout the COVID-19 crisis, we’ve worked to keep both our workforce and the people who use our platforms safe. Last month we announced that we would temporarily send our content reviewers home. Since then we’ve shared updates on changes we’ve made to keep our platform safe during this time, including increasing the use of automation, carefully prioritizing user reports, and temporarily altering our appeals process.

We’ve also asked some of our full-time employees to review content related to real-world harm like child safety and suicide and self-injury. It’s become clear in recent weeks that our offices are unlikely to return to business as usual in the near future. Some of our full-time employees will continue to review sensitive content, but as Mark referenced last week we will begin working with our partners to bring a small number of content reviewers back to offices to support these efforts in the coming weeks. 

Returning to the office will be voluntary. We’ll also work with our partners to put protections in place to keep content reviewers safe. These will include: greatly reducing building capacity in these offices to ensure government guidelines on physical distancing can be observed, implementing strict cleaning protocols and providing personal protective equipment like masks and gloves as well as temperature checks at the beginning of every shift. 

As the situation evolves, we’ll continue to share changes we make to keep both our community and the people who review content on our platforms safe.

Update on April 20, 2020 at 1:00PM PT:

Facebook Joins Open COVID Patent Pledge

Today Facebook joined Amazon, Hewlett Packard, IBM, and Microsoft in signing the Open COVID Patent Pledge to help make patents freely available in the fight against COVID-19. The pledge allows people to use our patents to advance innovation that may help in ending the COVID-19 pandemic and minimizing the impact of the disease — without any uncertainty around intellectual property rights or fear of litigation.

Update on April 20, 2020 at 3:15AM PT:

Sharing COVID-19 Symptom Maps and Expanding Survey Globally to Help Predict Disease Spread 

Today Carnegie Mellon University (CMU) Delphi Research Center made public the initial results of their US symptom survey we promoted on Facebook. Using aggregate data from Carnegie Mellon, Facebook produced its first report and new interactive maps, which we plan to update daily through this outbreak. Mark Zuckerberg wrote in the Washington Post about how surveys like this can be an important tool in fighting COVID-19 and announced that we’re working with faculty from the University of Maryland to expand the program globally.

Facebook and Carnegie Mellon University COVID-19 Symptom Map

Update on April 16, 2020 at 10:55AM PT:

Limiting the Spread of COVID-19 Misinformation

Today we shared some additional steps we’re taking to combat COVID-19 related misinformation and make sure people have the accurate information they need to stay safe.

Update on April 15, 2020 at 8:08AM PT:

Making It Easier to Support Businesses on Instagram

We’re making it easier for people to support the businesses they love through gift cards, online food orders and fundraisers all on Instagram. Learn more.

Screenshots of food ordering and gift cards on Instagram

Update on April 14, 2020 at 2:05PM PT:

Getting Expert Insights on How We Can Safely Re-Open Society

Mark Zuckerberg and Priscilla Chan are live with Dr. Tom Frieden, the former director of the CDC and founder of Resolve to Save Lives. They’ll discuss how we can contain the spread of COVID-19 and how we should approach reopening society.

Update on April 14, 2020 at 12:05PM PT:

Helping the WHO Share Timely Information on Messenger

Today the World Health Organization (WHO) launched an interactive experience on Messenger to provide accurate and timely information about the coronavirus outbreak. People will now be able to message the WHO with questions about COVID-19 and get quick answers for free. The WHO created this Messenger experience with support from Sprinklr as part of the program we recently announced to pair developer partners with health organizations to help them connect with people and deliver critical information during the COVID-19 outbreak. Learn more.

Update on April 9, 2020 at 2:15PM PT:

Connecting People to Well-Being Tips and Resources

The COVID-19 pandemic has forced people around the world to adjust to new routines, cope with loneliness, job loss, grief and more. And it’s tough for all of us in different ways, not just physically but mentally. To help, we’re sharing tips from experts to stay well, supporting the work of mental health organizations, and giving you tools to manage your time on Facebook.

  • Tips and Resources: We’re sharing tips from the World Health Organization (WHO) on how people can take care of themselves, stay active, relieve stress, and establish new goals and routines while staying home. We’ll also connect people to their local crisis hotline, so people can call or text to get help when they need it. These tips and resources will be available in the Coronavirus Information Center on Facebook starting today, and we’ll also share similar well-being tips on @Instagram from the National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI).
  • Mental Health Live Series: We’re encouraging people to tune in to an Instagram Live series from @Netflix called “Wanna Talk About It?” Stars will pair up with experts from organizations like the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention, NAMI, Crisis Text Line, The Trevor Project, Mental Health America and more to discuss how they’re coping during this time as well as ways to handle anxiety, stress and feelings of isolation while social distancing. We’re also working on an Instagram Live series with NAMI to encourage conversations about mental health and promote activities to help people stay well.
  • Supporting Crisis Helplines: We’re donating $2 million to support organizations like Vibrant Emotional Health that operates the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline in the US, Kids Help Phone in Canada, iCALL Psychosocial Helpline in India, Samaritans in the UK, Centro de Valorização da Vida in Brazil and more. These organizations offer critical support for people struggling with loneliness, anxiety and other mental health issues and we want to help them increase capacity quickly during this time.
  • Tools to Manage Your Time: As we all adjust to new routines and staying home, setting boundaries for how you spend your time online can be helpful. Whether it’s to help you focus on your family and friends, sleep without distraction or manage how you spend your time at home, we have tools that can help you find the right balance for how you use Facebook. We added Quiet Mode, which mutes most push notifications, and if you try to open Facebook while in Quiet Mode, you’ll be reminded that you set this time aside to limit your time in the app. We also added shortcuts to Notification Settings and News Feed Preferences, so you can make the most of your time on Facebook by controlling the type of posts you see in your News Feed as well as the updates you receive.

Screenshots of well-being tips on Facebook, Instagram video promoting mental health conversations, and Quiet Mode - a tool to mute push notifications and limit your time on Facebook

Update on April 7, 2020 at 1:00PM PT:

Helping People Get Reliable Information In Groups and Local Alerts

As people are turning to Groups to connect with communities they care about and get support during this time, we want to make it easy to find and share reliable information in groups. Here are a few things we’re doing: 

  • We show members of COVID-19 related groups an educational pop-up directing them to credible information from health organizations. This is similar to the messages we show in News Feed and in Search when you look for COVID-19 related content. 
  • We prompt group admins to share Live broadcasts about COVID-19 from health authorities like the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and the World Health Organization (WHO) as well as official state and country health departments.
  • We partnered with the CDC to develop a curriculum in our learning units tool that group admins can share with members to help them learn how to stay safe during the COVID-19 outbreak and prevent the spread of the disease. 

Screenshot of groups learning unit

In addition, we more than doubled the number of state and local governments and health agencies onboarded to Facebook local alerts, so we now have more than 2,000 partners using the tool to communicate timely information to their communities.

Update on April 6, 2020 at 12:00PM PT:

New Tools to Help Health Researchers Track and Combat COVID-19

Today we’re announcing new Data for Good tools to support health researchers and nonprofits:

  • Three new types of Disease Prevention Maps to help inform disease forecasting efforts and protective measures, using aggregated data to protect people’s privacy
  • A prompt on Facebook encouraging people in the US to participate in a voluntary survey from Carnegie Mellon University Delphi Research Center designed to help health researchers identify COVID-19 hotspots earlier

COVID Survey Facebook

Update on April 2, 2020 at 4:25PM PT:

Helping Small Businesses

Today we’re sharing an update on our efforts to help small businesses get through this challenging time. These include:

  • Updates to Our $100 Million Small Business Grants Program: We will give $40 million in the US, which will provide grants to 10,000 businesses. We’re working with Ureeka, a third-party partner to distribute these grants starting in the 34 locations where our employees live and work. Businesses can go to facebook.com/grantsforbusiness to see eligibility criteria, and applications will open in the US next week.  
  • Gift Cards: We’re making it easier for people to support their favorite local businesses with digital gift cards on Facebook, which are beginning to roll out today in the US. People will see the option to support local businesses with digital gift cards in their News Feed. Businesses interested in promoting their gift cards can learn how to sign up with one of our partners. We’re also working on offering gift cards on Instagram.  
  • Fundraising: Starting today, business owners can create a personal fundraiser on Facebook for their business and ask customers for support during this critical time.
  • Temporary Service Changes: To help businesses inform their customers about temporary changes, like different operating hours or delivery options during this time, we’re making it possible for businesses to announce temporary service changes on their Facebook Page and in searches on Facebook.
Update on March 31, 2020 at 12:15PM PT:

Making It Easier for People to Request or Offer Help in Their Communities

Today we’re announcing Community Help, a place for people to request or offer help to neighbors, such as volunteering to deliver groceries or donating to a local food pantry or fundraiser. You can access Community Help in the COVID-19 Information Center on Facebook or by visiting facebook.com/covidsupport. We’re starting to roll it out in the US, the UK, France, Australia and Canada in the next few days, and we’re working to bring it to more countries in the coming weeks.

Update on March 30, 2020 at 1:40PM PT:

Donating $25 Million to Support Healthcare Workers

Mark Zuckerberg and Priscilla Chan are live with Governor Gavin Newsom to talk about California’s response to the COVID-19 outbreak. They’ll discuss the urgent need for more healthcare workers and Facebook’s $25 million donation to help support healthcare workers on the front line.

Update on March 30, 2020 at 6:00AM PT:

Investing $100 Million in the News Industry

The news industry is working under extraordinary conditions to keep people informed during the COVID-19 pandemic. Today we’re announcing an additional $100-million investment to support journalists — including $25 million in emergency grant funding for local news through the Facebook Journalism Project, and an extra $75 million in marketing to get money to publishers around the world at a time when their advertising revenue is declining.

This investment is in addition to the support we’ve already pledged to the news industry in response to COVID-19: $1 million in grants for local news, $1 million in grants for fact-checking organizations, and a $1-million donation to the International Fact-Checking Network.

Update on March 26, 2020 at 1:00PM PT:

Launching the Messenger Coronavirus Community Hub

Today, we’re launching the Messenger Coronavirus Community Hub with tips and resources to keep people connected to their friends, family, colleagues and community, and prevent the spread of misinformation. It also includes advice on how to recognize and avoid scams and misinformation online. Read more about how you can use Messenger to stay connected and informed during this time.  

Update on March 26, 2020 at 9:00AM PT:

Helping Young People Safely Navigate the Internet

Today we’re launching our digital literacy program, Get Digital, to provide lessons and resources to help young people develop the competencies and skills they need to more safely navigate the internet. These resources are designed to be used by educators and families both in the classroom and at home, but they’ve become even more important as young people spend more time on their devices while at home during the COVID-19 outbreak. 

Get Digital will help young people learn how to:

  • Stay safe online and protect their personal information
  • Navigate content and information, and evaluate the trustworthiness of a source
  • Build positive and inclusive communities online by being kind and respecting others
  • Manage their health and wellbeing by learning how to monitor emotions and develop healthy habits for when to use technology

It will also help them discover how technology can be used for civic and political engagement. And it can help them develop digital skills, such as understanding algorithms, and explore programming and more to help prepare them for future careers in technology.

We’re partnering with UNESCO, the International Society for Technology in Education (ISTE), National PTA, and EVERFI to distribute our new digital literacy tools to parents and educators around the world. Lessons are drawn from the Youth and Media team at the Berkman Klein Center for Internet & Society at Harvard University, which has made them freely available worldwide under a Creative Commons license, and the Greater Good Science Center.

Update on March 26, 2020 at 7:15AM PT:

Sharing Tips for People Working Remotely

Remote work can be challenging whether you’re balancing caregiving and work, trying to lead a dispersed team, or adjusting to a new routine and responsibilities. That’s why we created an online resource with tips to help our global team stay connected, be productive and do their best work, wherever they’re working. We’re sharing it publicly today in case it’s helpful to others as many adjust to working remotely during this challenging time. Check out our remote work resources.

Update on March 25, 2020 at 9:57AM PT:

Combating COVID-19 Misinformation Across Our Apps

Today we shared an overview of how we’re connecting people to reliable information and taking aggressive steps to combat COVID-19 misinformation across our apps.

Update on March 24, 2020 at 1:30PM PT:

Keeping Our Apps Stable and Reliable

As more people around the world are physically distancing themselves from others, we’ve seen people using our apps more than ever. Today, we shared some data to give context on the load we’re managing. Our apps were built to withstand spikes, but the usage growth from COVID-19 is unprecedented across the industry. We’re monitoring usage patterns carefully, making our systems more efficient and adding capacity when needed, and we’re doing everything we can to keep our apps stable and reliable during this time.

Update on March 24, 2020 at 6:00AM PT:

Helping People Stay Informed and Connected on Instagram

Today we announced updates to help people stay informed, safe and connected on Instagram during this challenging time. These include:

  • Adding more educational resources in Instagram Search
  • Adding stickers to promote accurate information
  • Removing COVID-19 content and accounts from recommendations, unless posted by a credible health organization
  • Rolling out the donation sticker in more countries and helping people find relevant nonprofits to support
  • Creating a shared story to help those practicing social distancing connect with others, using a “Stay Home” sticker
  • Launching a new way to browse Instagram with friends over video chat
Update on March 23, 2020 at 12:01AM PT:

Helping Government Health Organizations Use Messenger

Today we’re announcing two initiatives to help government health organizations in their response to the coronavirus outbreak using Messenger. 

  1. We’re connecting government health organizations and UN health agencies with our developer partners who will help them use Messenger most effectively to scale their response to COVID-19. Our developer partners will provide their services for free, showing these critical organizations how to use Messenger to share timely information with local communities and speed up their replies to commonly asked questions with tools like automated responses. 
  2. We’re also starting an online hackathon and inviting developers to build messaging solutions that address issues related to the coronavirus such as social distancing and access to accurate information. Participants will receive unique access to Messenger tools and content as well as educational materials from Facebook to support their innovation. And the winners will get mentoring from Facebook engineers to help make their idea a reality. 

Read more about how we’re leveraging Messenger’s reach, tools and technology to help people stay connected and informed during this time.

Update on March 20, 2020 at 2:45PM PT:

Launching the WHO Health Alert on WhatsApp

Today we launched the World Health Organization’s Health Alert on WhatsApp. The WHO Health Alert is free to use and will answer common questions about COVID-19. It provides timely, reliable information about how to prevent the spread of the coronavirus as well as travel advice, coronavirus myth debunking and more. To contact the WHO Health Alert, save the number +41 79 893 1892 in your phone contacts and then text the word ‘Hi’ in a WhatsApp message to get started. The service is initially launching in English but will be available in all six United Nations languages (English, Arabic, Chinese, French, Russian and Spanish) within the coming weeks.

Update on March 19, 2020 at 7:22PM PT:

Keeping Our Platform Safe With Remote and Reduced Content Review

We recently announced that we’re temporarily sending content reviewers home. We want to make sure our platform remains a safe place for people to connect during this time, but with a reduced and remote workforce, below are some ways our content review processes will be impacted.  

Policy Enforcement: We will continue to enforce our policies and prioritize preventing and disrupting harm across our platform. We are conducting human rights due diligence, looking at potential risks, and putting in place contingency plans that both prioritize the safety of our content reviewers and support the integrity of our platform. As Mark Zuckerberg discussed on a press call, for example, we have shifted certain content review work to full time employees and are focusing on areas including child safety, terrorism, suicide and self-injury, and harmful content related to COVID-19. 

Some contract reviewers will work from home, but with a reduced and remote workforce, we will now rely more on our automated systems to detect and remove violating content and disable accounts. As a result, we expect to make more mistakes, and reviews will take longer than normal, but we will continue to monitor how our systems are performing and make adjustments. In addition, reviewing content can be challenging, and working from home presents new obstacles in providing support to our teams, but we’re working to ensure our content reviewers have the resources and help they need during this time.

User Reports: When people report content to us that they believe violates our policies, they will see a new message letting them know that we have fewer content reviewers available and will prioritize reported content that has the greatest potential ​to harm our community. This means some reports will not be reviewed as quickly as they used to be and we will not get to some reports at all.

Appeals: Normally when we remove content, we offer the person who posted it the option to request that we review the content again if they think we made a mistake. Now, given our reduced workforce, we’ll give people the option to tell us that they disagree with our decision and we’ll monitor that feedback to improve our accuracy, but we likely won’t review content a second time.

We’re working hard to minimize any impact on people as they use Facebook, Instagram and Messenger during this time, but we know some may feel this impact either when reporting content to us or appealing content we remove. 

We’re doing everything we can to keep our global teams and the community that uses our apps safe while continuing to provide the services people and businesses rely on. 

Update on March 19, 2020 at 4:12PM PT:

Getting Expert Health Tips and Information From Dr. Fauci

Mark Zuckerberg is live with Dr. Anthony Fauci, America’s top infectious disease expert involved in leading our government’s response to COVID-19. They’ll discuss how we can all help fight the spread of the coronavirus and what governments are doing to respond to the pandemic.

Update on March 19, 2020 at 2:18PM PT:

Banning Ads for Hand Sanitizer, Disinfecting Wipes and COVID-19 Testing Kits

In addition to masks, we’re now also banning ads and commerce listings for hand sanitizer, surface disinfecting wipes and COVID-19 testing kits. And if we see people selling these products in organic posts on Facebook or Instagram, we’ll remove them.

Update on March 18, 2020 at 6:01PM PT:

Minimizing Disruptions for Businesses and Partners on Our Platform

As we announced on Monday, we’re working with our partners to send home all contract workers who perform content review, until further notice. Since this includes people who review ads and monetized content, we wanted to share more about what this means for advertisers, publishers and creators that use our tools. 

For Advertisers

We use a combination of people and technology to review ads on Facebook and Instagram, and our automated systems already play a big role in that process. Now with a reduced and remote workforce, we’re relying on automated technology even more. This may mean: 

  • Delayed review for ads and commerce listings 
  • An increase in ads being incorrectly disapproved
  • Delayed or reduced appeals
  • More limited availability of Facebook in-stream ads and lower delivery

For Content Creators and Publishers

All monetized content goes through brand safety reviews. This includes Instant Articles and videos with in-stream ads. Since our ability to review new content is now limited, we won’t be able to approve all content for monetization. We’re working on how to support partners at this time. 

As this situation continues to evolve, we may need to make further changes to our systems. While we’re working to minimize disruptions for businesses and partners, we will inevitably make mistakes. We will do our best to address any issues as quickly as we can and continue to provide updates.

Update on March 18, 2020 at 2:30PM PT:

Press Call Recap

This morning on a press call, Mark Zuckerberg shared how we’re supporting people and businesses affected by the coronavirus outbreak and how we’re working with health authorities to make sure everyone can access accurate information. He also announced a new Coronavirus Information Center on Facebook to help people find information and tips, and he shared how we’re giving governments and emergency services around the world free access to Workplace. Read the full transcript from his press call. 

Update on March 18, 2020 at 11:12AM PT:

Offering Workplace to Government and Emergency Organizations for Free

Starting today, we’re offering Workplace Advanced to government agencies and emergency services free of charge for 12 months. These organizations play a vital role during the coronavirus outbreak, whether it’s acting as first responders or coordinating public information. Workplace can help inform and connect their employees, allowing them to share critical information in real-time and enabling leadership to reach employees via live videos, posts and more. Read more about how we’re supporting emergency services and government organizations during this time.

Product shot of Workplace on a laptop and on a mobile device

Update on March 18, 2020 at 11:06AM PT:

Launching the Coronavirus Information Center on Facebook

Today we’re announcing the Coronavirus (COVID-19) Information Center, featured at the top of News Feed, to provide a central place for people to get the latest news and information as well as resources and tips to stay healthy and support their family and community. 

It includes real-time updates from national health authorities and global organizations such as the World Health Organization, as well as helpful articles, videos and posts about social distancing and preventing the spread of COVID-19.

People can also follow the Coronavirus Information Center to receive updates from health authorities directly in their News Feed. And starting in the US, people will see features to help them connect with local groups and ask for or offer help within their community.

We’re rolling out the information center in Italy, France, Germany, Spain, the UK and the US within the next 24 hours, and we’ll expand it to more countries in the coming days. 

Screenshots of the Coronavirus Info Center on mobile

Update on March 18, 2020 at 7:56AM PT:

Helping People Stay Connected Using WhatsApp

In these uncertain times, reliable communication is critical. That’s why we’ve nearly doubled server capacity for WhatsApp and continue to see strong reliability as people place more voice and video calls around the world. In addition, today we launched an information hub with tips on how healthcare workers, educators and local businesses can stay connected using WhatsApp. We also donated $1 million to the International Fact-Checking Network (IFCN) to expand the presence of local fact-checkers on WhatsApp. 

Update on March 17, 2020 at 6:15AM PT:

Supporting Fact-Checkers and Local News Organizations

To support fact-checkers in their work around COVID-19, we’re partnering with The International Fact-Checking Network (IFCN) to launch a $1 million grant program to increase their capacity during this time. 

We’re also supporting local news organizations as they deal with unexpected costs of covering COVID-19 and provide increased coverage during this time. To help, the Facebook Journalism Project is partnering with the Lenfest Institute for Journalism and the Local Media Association to offer a total of $1 million in grants to local news organizations covering COVID-19 in the US and Canada. 

Update on March 17, 2020 at 6:00AM PT:

Investing $100 Million in Small Businesses

We’re creating a $100 million grant program to help small businesses around the world impacted by the coronavirus. 

Update on March 16, 2020 at 8:46PM PT:

Keeping Our People and Our Platforms Safe

To keep our people safe, we recently requested that anyone who can work from home do so in all of our offices around the world. We are also continuing to take the necessary steps to keep our platform safe. 

Over the past couple of years we’ve substantially scaled up our investments in safety and security, including by rapidly growing content review teams and expanding our machine learning capabilities. For both our full-time employees and contract workforce there is some work that cannot be done from home due to safety, privacy and legal reasons. We have taken precautions to protect our workers by cutting down the number of people in any given office, implementing recommended work from home globally, physically spreading people out at any given office and doing additional cleaning. Given the rapidly evolving public health concerns, we are taking additional steps to protect our teams and will be working with our partners over the course of this week to send all contract workers who perform content review home, until further notice. We’ll ensure that all workers are paid during this time.  

We believe the investments we’ve made over the past three years have prepared us for this situation. With fewer people available for human review we’ll continue to prioritize imminent harm and increase our reliance on proactive detection in other areas to remove violating content. We don’t expect this to impact people using our platform in any noticeable way. That said, there may be some limitations to this approach and we may see some longer response times and make more mistakes as a result.

These are unprecedented times, but the safety and security of our platform will continue.  We are grateful to all of our teams working hard to continue doing the essential work to keep our community safe.

Update on March 16, 2020 at 5PM PT:

Working With Industry Partners

Joint industry statement from Facebook, Google, LinkedIn, Microsoft, Reddit, Twitter and YouTube

“We are working closely together on COVID-19 response efforts. We’re helping millions of people stay connected while also jointly combating fraud and misinformation about the virus, elevating authoritative content on our platforms, and sharing critical updates in coordination with government healthcare agencies around the world. We invite other companies to join us as we work to keep our communities healthy and safe.”

 

Update on March 13, 2020 at 10:10AM PT:

Matching $20 Million in Donations to Support COVID-19 Relief Efforts

We’re matching $20 million in donations to support COVID-19 relief efforts.

Update on March 13, 2020 at 9:30AM PT: 

Connecting People With Credible Health Information on Instagram

We shared updates on our efforts to support the Instagram community during this time.

Update on March 12, 2020 at 12:26PM PT: 

Supporting Businesses and Community Leaders

To help people stay safe and informed during the COVID-19 outbreak, we’re providing additional resources to our community. We shared a blog post on our Community Hub to provide accurate information on disease prevention and connect community leaders with tools to help them manage their community. We also created a Business Resource Hub that includes tips and trainings to help businesses navigate challenges during the COVID-19 outbreak and support their customers during this time. 

Expanding Access to Facebook Local Alerts

In addition, we’re helping local governments and emergency response organizations more easily communicate with their communities. As COVID-19 has spread in the US, local governments have used Facebook to share critical information with their communities about this fast evolving situation. Because of the increasing need to get timely and accurate information to local communities, we’re expanding access to Facebook local alerts to even more municipal governments, state and local emergency response organizations and law enforcement agencies. State and local public health agencies will now also have the ability to push out timely, accurate information to their local communities. And we’ll provide additional training to partners as they start using local alerts to share best practices for using the tool most effectively. 

Eligible organizations and government agencies can request access to the local alerts tool here. 

Update on March 6, 2020 at 6:25PM PT: 

Banning Ads and Commerce Listings for Medical Face Masks

We are temporarily banning advertisements and commerce listings, like those on Marketplace, that sell medical face masks. We’ll begin to enforce this change over the next few days. We already prohibit people from making health or medical claims related to the coronavirus in product listings on commerce surfaces, including those listings that guarantee a product will prevent someone from contracting it. We also have a dedicated channel for local governments to share listings they believe violate local laws. Our teams are monitoring the COVID-19 situation closely and will make necessary updates to our policies if we see people trying to exploit this public health emergency.

Update on March 6, 2020 at 10:52AM PT:

Removing COVID-19 Misinformation on Instagram

Today we shared updates about the changes we’ve made to keep the Instagram community safe and informed on COVID-19.

Update on March 3, 2020 at 7:05PM PT:

Supporting Global Health Organizations With Free Ads and More

CEO Mark Zuckerberg posted about the latest steps Facebook is taking.

Update on February 26, 2020 at 7:13PM PT:

As world health officials issue new guidance and warnings about coronavirus (COVID-19), we’re continuing our work to connect people to information from regional and local health organizations and limit the spread of misinformation and harmful content about the virus. 

Connecting People to Accurate Information and Helpful Resources

Anyone who searches for information related to the virus on Facebook is shown educational pop-ups on top of search results connecting them to expert health organizations including the World Health Organization (WHO). We’ve launched these globally over the last few weeks in all languages on Facebook, directing people to the WHO. In several countries we are directing people to their local ministry of health. For example, in the US we are directing people to information from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and in Singapore, we’re directing people to the Singapore Ministry of Health. Moreover, in countries where the WHO has reported person-to-person transmission and deaths, we’ve shown additional messages to people toward the top of News Feed with more information. 

Screenshots of Coronavirus pop-ups in Search and News Feed

Exploitative Tactics in Ads

Yesterday we put a new policy into effect to protect people from those trying to exploit this emergency for financial gain. This means we are now prohibiting ads for products that refer to the coronavirus in ways intended to create a panic or imply that their products guarantee a cure or prevent people from contracting it. For example, ads for face masks that imply they are the only ones still available or claim that they are guaranteed to prevent the virus from spreading will not be allowed to run on our platforms.

Originally published on January 30, 2020 at 5:40PM PT:

Today, the World Health Organization (WHO) declared the coronavirus a public health emergency of international concern. As the global public health community works to keep people safe, Facebook is supporting their work in several ways, most especially by working to limit the spread of misinformation and harmful content about the virus and connecting people to helpful information. Here are some specific steps we are taking.

Limiting Misinformation and Harmful Content

Our global network of third-party fact-checkers are continuing their work reviewing content and debunking false claims that are spreading related to the coronavirus. When they rate information as false, we limit its spread on Facebook and Instagram and show people accurate information from these partners. We also send notifications to people who already shared or are trying to share this content to alert them that it’s been fact-checked.

We will also start to remove content with false claims or conspiracy theories that have been flagged by leading global health organizations and local health authorities that could cause harm to people who believe them. We are doing this as an extension of our existing policies to remove content that could cause physical harm. We’re focusing on claims that are designed to discourage treatment or taking appropriate precautions. This includes claims related to false cures or prevention methods — like drinking bleach cures the coronavirus — or claims that create confusion about health resources that are available. We will also block or restrict hashtags used to spread misinformation on Instagram, and are conducting proactive sweeps to find and remove as much of this content as we can.

Providing Helpful Information and Support

Our platforms are already being used to help people connect with accurate information about the situation, including from global and regional health organizations. We’ve been closely coordinating with leading health organizations to make this easier and more accessible for people using Facebook and Instagram.

For example, we will help people get relevant and up-to-date information from partners through messages on top of News Feed on Facebook; these will be deployed based on guidance from the WHO. When people search for information related to the virus on Facebook or tap a related hashtag on Instagram, we will surface an educational pop-up with credible information. We have also provided free advertising credits to enable organizations to run coronavirus education campaigns on Facebook and Instagram in affected regions and are discussing ways to provide additional assistance and support to health authorities.

Empowering Partners with Data Tools

We are empowering leading researchers at Harvard University’s School of Public Health and National Tsing Hua University in Taiwan by sharing aggregated and anonymized mobility data and high resolution population density maps to help inform their forecasting models for the spread of the virus as part of our broader Data for Good program. We may expand these efforts to a broader set of partners in the coming weeks. We are also helping partners understand how people are talking about the issue online through tools like CrowdTangle to better inform their efforts.

Not all of these steps are fully in place. It will take some time to roll them out across our platforms and step up our enforcement methods.

We will provide updates on additional steps we are taking in coordination with global and regional partners as the situation continues to evolve.

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