Fifty million posts full of falsehoods about the coronavirus were disseminated on Facebook in April. And 2.5 million ads for face masks, COVID-19 test kits, and other coronavirus products tried to circumvent an advertising ban since 1 March. The ban was designed to prevent scammers and others trying to profit from people’s fears about the pandemic.
Those are just the pieces of coronavirus content that were identified as problematic and flagged or removed by Facebook during the period. The flood of misinformation is certainly larger, as not every fake or exploitative post is easily detectable.