Facebook to 'debunk myths' about coronavirus
Mark Zuckerberg will interview Dr. Fauci on Thursday
Facebook has created a section in its COVID-19 Information Center called “Facts About COVID-19,” in which the World Health Organization will “debunk common myths about the pandemic.”
The social media giant also announced that CEO Mark Zuckerberg will interview Dr. Anthony Fauci on Thursday afternoon about America’s response to coronavirus and how close we are to a vaccine.
Fauci, the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, has been the face of the federal government’s response to coronavirus, but he has had a row with the White House recently. White House trade adviser Peter Navarro wrote an op-ed for USA Today on Wednesday in which he argued that Fauci “has been wrong about everything I have interacted with him on.”
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Fauci called the attacks on him “bizarre” Wednesday and said they were backfiring.
"I cannot figure out in my wildest dreams why they would want to do that. I think they realize now that that was not a prudent thing to do, because it's only reflecting negatively on them," Fauci said to The Atlantic. "I can't explain Peter Navarro. He's in a world by himself."
President Trump said Wednesday that Navarro’s statement only represented himself and that he has a good relationship with Fauci.
Zuckerberg previously interviewed Fauci in March.
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A Facebook spokesman told FOX Business the company has “been connecting people with authoritative info on COVID since January” and the info center has been live since March. Facebook said its efforts have connected 2 billion people to info from health authorities.
The partnership with the World Health Organization may rankle some U.S. officials who have argued the WHO has been unreliable during the fight against coronavirus.
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For instance, the WHO repeated the claim of Chinese officials in mid-January that there is “no clear evidence of human-to-human transmission” of coronavirus.
Critics also argue that WHO has tended to underestimate the threat of coronavirus.
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"The WHO waited much too long to declare a 'Global Health Emergency,' a designation that importantly would have alerted public health officials in countries neighboring China to start preparing. Similarly, the WHO initially refused to declare a global pandemic, bizarrely claiming that they no longer used this designation, but then ultimately did so," Dr. Dena Grayson, a Florida-based expert in infectious diseases, told Fox News. "This also likely cause substantial delays in preparedness by other nations in advance of this deadly virus."
President Trump said in May that the United States will cut ties with the World Health Organization.
Facebook has resisted calls to fact-check politicians in the past.
"I just believe strongly that Facebook shouldn't be the arbiter of truth of everything that people say online," Zuckerberg told Fox News in May. "Private companies probably shouldn't be, especially these platform companies, shouldn't be in the position of doing that."
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