Aoife Gallagher: Social platforms lack the ‘will’ or ‘ability’ to tackle misinformation

Since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, Facebook has removed 24 million pieces of COVID-19 misinformation and closed more than 3,000 accounts around the world. However, the speed and accuracy when doing so is still questionable.

The Independent references our report on the World Doctors Alliance as support that Facebook’s reliance on AI and fact-checking isn’t catching repeat offenders in the proper way. Our report looks into a network of 12 medical professionals that were able to push misinformation while significantly growing their following.

ISD analyst Aoife Gallagher, one of the report authors, commented to the outlet about how current efforts are not enough.

“Effectively countering the impact of disinformation and conspiracy theories is admittedly not an easy task. However, it has become abundantly clear that the social media platforms — who are responsible for hosting this kind of content — either lack the will and/or the ability to tackle the problem,” Aoife said.

“Companies such as Meta often point to their use of AI technology or fact-checking — but evidence shows these efforts are failing to have any kind of meaningful impact.”