Facebook considering ending restrictions on Covid misinformation – The Guardian

Facebook is turning to its “supreme court” to decide whether to end restrictions on Covid misinformation, more than two years after the company first started to take special action on posts promoting falsehoods about the disease.The social network is considering changing the way it deals with such misinformation by, for example, labelling it as false or demoting it in algorithmic ranking, rather than simply removing it from the site. It wants to make the change now, according to head of global affairs, Nick Clegg, “as many, though not all, countries around the world seek to return to more normal life”.But in order to avoid making the wrong choice when “resolving the inherent tensions between free expression and safety”, Facebook will turn to its oversight board, the arms-length self-regulator set up in May 2020, to decide on what the future moderation policy should be.“We are requesting an advisory opinion from the oversight board on whether Meta’s current measures to address Covid-19 misinformation under our harmful health misinformation policy continue to be appropriate,” Clegg said, “or whether we should address this misinformation through other means, like labeling or demoting it either directly or through our third-party fact-checking program.”By requesting an opinion, Facebook…
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