COVID-19: How Instagram wants to reduce fake news, encourage users to stay at home with ‘co-watching’
Photo-sharing platform Instagram has rolled out new features to remove misinformation about COVID-19 from the platform. It also announced a new feature that will help people observing social distancing enjoy their stay at home, the feature is called co-watching and it allows users in direct-message conversations to check out saved, liked and suggested photos and videos together while video chatting with friends on Instagram.
Instagram announced the new features in a thread of tweets on Tuesday and said it is part of the work it is doing to support the Instagram community in light of COVID-19.
Amid spread of fake information on the deadly coronavirus, Instagram said it will now filter information on the topic and make only information from credible health sources like the WHO visible to users.
The tweets read:
“To reduce the spread of misinformation, we’ll now remove COVID-19 accounts from account recommendations, and we are working to remove some COVID-19 related content from Explore, unless posted by a credible health organization. We’ll roll out a new feature that connects people with accurate information when they search for COVID-19 related terms.
“To help people stay connected, we’re launching Co-Watching, a new feature that allows you to view Instagram posts together with your friends while you video chat.”
The Facebook-owned platform is one of the tech companies taking pro-active measures to educate users as part of their response to COVID-19.
Its CEO Mark Zuckerberg said last week that the biggest role Facebook can play is encouraging people to take social distancing orders seriously.
