Messenger From Facebook to help health organizations push out accurate coronavirus information

Last updated on May 13th, 2021 at 06:07 am

Novel coronavirus has become global pandemic, that everyone makes serious efforts combatting the virus, including Facebook. The tech giant stepping up its efforts to push out accurate information about the novel coronavirus on its messaging service as concerns about misinformation continue to grow.

Facebook on Monday, March 23 began enlisting outside developers to create ways its Messenger service can help health organizations.

According to Messenger vice president Stan Chudnovsk thru a blog post, Messenger inviting developers worldwide to participate in an online hackathon aimed at finding ways to leverage the Messenger platform for solutions addressing issues related to Covid-19, such as social distancing and keeping people educated and informed.

On social networks there are hoaxes and conspiracy theories about the coronavirus continuing, including Facebook and Twitter.

Chudnovsk unveiled a global program intended to connect government health organizations and UN agencies with developers who can create ways to use Messenger share accurate information and speed up responses to people’s questions.

Any common questions can be automated answering thru program created by software makers that could help agencies. So the staff could tackle more challenging tasks.

Developers can also help organizations use software to quickly distribute updated information.

Organizations such as UNICEF and Pakistan’s Ministry of National Health Services, Regulations & Coordination (NHSRC) are already using Messenger to ensure people have the latest information about COVID-19.

Meanwhile, Facebook-owned messaging service WhatsApp recently launched a free World Health Organization alert designed to answer questions about the coronavirus and debunk “coronavirus myths.”

The service, launching in English, is to expand in coming weeks to some languages, include Arabic, Chinese, French, Russian and Spanish.

WhatsApp last week launched a Coronavirus Information Hub in partnership with WHO and United Nations organizations.

The mesagging app also issued a $1 million grant to an International Fact Checking Network alliance devoted to reporting on coronavirus rumors spreading on messaging services.

Concerns have been raised about WhatsApp and other messaging services being used to spread bogus information about coronavirus.

WhatsApp software prevents users from blasting messages to massive numbers of people at once, which tends to be a spam tactic also labels forwarded or chain messages to identify the sender.