WhatsApp launches coronavirus information hub

WhatsApp has also donated $1m to the International Fact-Checking Network to debunk coronavirus rumours

Facebook’s WhatsApp messenger has been actively trying to fight misinformation amid the coronavirus outbreak.

Earlier, WhasApp globally limited the number of times a user can forward a message to five, in a bid to fight “misinformation and rumours”, company executives said.

“We’re imposing a limit of five messages all over the world as of today,” Victoria Grand, vice president for policy and communications at WhatsApp, said at an event in the Indonesian capital.

WhatsApp has now released an information hub that offers guidelines on using the service to those who use the app for work purposes as well as general users.

The main aim of the Hub is to provide guidelines to WhatsApp’s two billion users’ in the health and education sector, as well as other businesses and organisations which use the service for their work.

WhatsApp will stop working for several smartphones from 2020

Furthermore, it has been launched in partnership with the World Health Organisation (WHO), Unicef and the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), which means that users will be equipped with authentic and updated information.

"We know that our users are reaching out on WhatsApp more than ever at this time of crisis, whether it's to friends and loved ones, doctors to patients, or teachers to students,” said Will Cathcart, head of WhatsApp.

"We wanted to provide a simple resource that can help connect people at this time."

WhatsApp has also announced a $1m donation to the Poynter Institute's International Fact-Checking Network (IFCN).

"We are also pleased to be able to partner with the Poynter Institute to help grow the amount of fact-checking organisations on WhatsApp and to support their life-saving work to debunk rumors," said  Cathcart.

"We will also continue to work directly with health ministries around the world for them to provide updates right within WhatsApp."



"The timely donation from WhatsApp will help the fact-checks published by the CoronaVirusFacts Alliance to reach wider audiences and, in consequence, help people sort facts from fiction during this avalanche of information that WHO called an 'infodemic', said Baybars Orsek, director of the IFCN.

"The International Fact-Checking Network also looks forward to discovering ways to understand the spread of health-related hoaxes on WhatsApp in different formats and to make tools available for fact-checkers to detect and debunk misinformation on the messaging app."

This article originally published on Raidió Teilifís Éireann.