Philippines, 31 January 2020 – As the global conversation continues around the spread of novel #coronavirus, we want to share the work we’re doing to surface the right information, to promote constructive engagement, and to highlight credible information on this emerging issue.
We’ve seen over 15 million Tweets on this topic in the past four weeks and that trend looks set to continue.
Preventing platform manipulation
At present, we’re not seeing significant coordinated attempts to spread disinformation at scale about this issue. However, we will remain vigilant and have invested significantly in our proactive abilities to ensure trends, search, and other common areas of the service are protected from malicious behaviors. As ever, those who engage in these practices will be removed from our service. We do not permit platform manipulation and we encourage people to think before sharing or engaging in deliberate attempts to undermine the public conversation.
Expanding search prompt
Given the rapidly evolving nature of the issue and the growing international response, we’ve launched a new dedicated search prompt to ensure that when you come to the service for information about the #coronavirus, you’re met with credible, authoritative information first. In addition, we’re halting any auto-suggest results that are likely to direct individuals to non-credible content on Twitter. This is an expansion of our #KnowTheFacts prompt, which we specifically put in place for the public to find clear, credible information on immunization and vaccination health. When people search for information about coronavirus on Twitter in both English and Tagalog, the notification will appear in Tagalog.
Our official #coronavirus partnerships are now in place in Australia, Brazil, Canada, Hong Kong, Japan, Malaysia, New Zealand, Philippines, Singapore, South Korea, Taiwan, Thailand, the U.S., and Vietnam. We will continue to expand as the need arises. In the Philippines, we partnered with the Department of Health, as well as the World Health Organization regional offices covering Philippines, and Western Pacific Region. The notification points people to the Department of Health’s dedicated website on coronavirus.
Direct engagement
Finally, our Global Public Policy team is proactively seeking ways to integrate the product with organizations involved in the effort to contain the threat. Experts, NGOs, and governments play a pivotal public service role, using Twitter to reach people with the right information when they need it. We’re committed to playing our part to amplify authoritative, official content across the globe.
For more, please follow @TwitterGov and @Policy, where we will provide updates as appropriate.
