Islamabad: The Government of Pakistan has collaborated with Facebook to combat online misinformation related to COVID-19.
On Twitter, the official government account announced it had “successfully partnered with Facebook to combat COVID-19 disinformation.”
Government of Pakistan has successfully partnered with Facebook to fight #COVID19 misinformation & created videos and messages to boost greater vaccine confidence amongst the nation that had reached over 32 Million people in Pakistan. #GetVaccinated pic.twitter.com/Q2nrD8cAI1
— Government of Pakistan (@GovtofPakistan) June 22, 2021
The collaboration helped people spot fake news and allowed officials to control misinformation.
In Pakistan 🇵🇰 , more than 32 million people have received reliable information on coronavirus prevention and vaccination through social media messaging campaigns led by the Ministry of Health and the Digital Media Wing (DMW) of the Ministry of Information in association with Facebook.
“The messaging campaigns have helped the Ministry of Health increase the total number of likes on the page to 470,000,” increasing the government’s ability to connect with more people and provide them with authentic information, according to the official statement.
According to the National Command and Control Center (NCOC), 3,566,547 across the country were fully vaccinated, while 7,267,000 received only one dose of the vaccine. Meanwhile, 13,484,364 doses of the coronavirus vaccines have been administered so far.
Appreciating the support provided by Facebook to counter the COVID-19🦠 outbreak, Dr. Faisal Sultan, the Prime Minister’s Health Advisor, said: “We have reached 76% of our target population through social media messaging campaigns. The pandemic has highlighted the importance of using digital tools to convey critical health information to citizens and keep them safe and sound. ”
During the pandemic, Pakistan’s ministries of health and information worked closely with digital platforms to help people stay safe and informed with outreach messages in Urdu.
A campaign in Urdu was also launched to raise awareness among the Facebook community in Pakistan 🇵🇰 about the detection of COVID 🦠 -related disinformation on social media, in collaboration with the Department of Digital Media of the Ministry of Information.
“It is crucial to differentiate between information and misinformation in the age of digital communication. Facebook has supported the spread of accurate information through their drive of removing misinformation and fact-checking of news” said Information and Broadcasting Minister Fawad Chaudhry.
He expressed hope that the digital platform will continue to partner with Pakistan to “ensure that people receive accurate information”.
Facebook has been working to take aggressive steps to remove harmful misinformation and connect people to health authority resources. Since the pandemic began in March 2020, Facebook has removed more than 16 million pieces of content from Facebook 🇵🇰 and Instagram globally for violations against our policies on COVID-19 🦠related misinformation and harm.
Between March and October 2020, Facebook displayed alerts on approximately 167 million Facebook content worldwide based on COVID-19 🦠related debunking articles written by our fact-checking partners.
Globally, Facebook has connected more than 2 billion people with health authority resources through the COVID-19 🦠 Information Center and Facebook and Instagram pop-ups with more than 600 million people clicking for more information.
On WhatsApp, governments, nonprofits, and international organizations sent more than 3 billion messages to citizens via WhatsApp government chatbots during COVID 19 🦠.
Sehar Tariq, Facebook’s Pakistan Public Policy Leader, said: “By working closely with the Department of Digital Media of the Ministry of Health and the Ministry of Information in Pakistan 🇵🇰, we are doing our part to help users in Pakistan get credible information.
We would like to express our appreciation to the Honorable Fawad Chaudhry, Minister of Information and Broadcasting, and to Dr. Faisal Sultan, SAPM for Health, for the tireless coordination and support they have provided to our team throughout the duration.
We at Facebook will continuously work to facilitate the fight against the pandemic for the government and our community in Pakistan and around the world. We look forward to continuing to provide our support and expertise wherever possible in the government of Pakistan’s fight against COVID 🦠. It is very important that we come together as a community to protect ourselves and others through credible health information and to support vaccine trust in our community. ”
Imran Ghazali, General Manager of Digital Media Wing (DMW), said: “One of the important steps in winning the battle against COVID19 is to raise awareness among the masses with the latest and most authentic health information while at the same time-fighting misinformation on social media. In this regard, our partnership with Facebook has played a pivotal role in reaching the masses with information related to vaccination records, following standard operating procedures and we will continue to work with Facebook to reach and engage more citizens across Pakistan 🇵🇰. ”
With the right mindset and the right information, anything can be accomplished. If you’d like to add more to this article, share your thoughts below in the comments section.
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