A recent report from activist group Avaaz has found that health misinformation is rampant on Facebook with false or misleading items receiving an estimated 3.8 billion views on the social network over the past year. The problem peaked as Covid-19 spread around the world this year with bogus content receiving 460 million views in April 2020 alone. Avaaz states that Facebook is failing to keep people safe and informed during the pandemic, adding that anti-vaccine communities, conspiracy theories and bogus health cures are all prospering on the platform. Facebook responded to the report’s findings by saying “it did not reflect the steps we’ve taken”.

The heart of the global misinformation network investigated by Avaaz are 82 websites known for spreading false or misleading stories about health and their reach is amplified on Facebook by pages, groups or individual profiles. The research notes that the limited sample does not represent the full extent of the problem and that it is likely to be a conservative estimate. Nevertheless, its severity is clearly evident by the fact that content from the top-10 websites spreading health misinformation had almost four times as many estimated views on Facebook as equivalent content from the websites of 10 leading health institutions over the past 12 months.

The following infographic highlights that trend as it developed over the course of the coronavirus pandemic. In March, for example, content from the top-10 misinformation websites was viewed over 124 million times while credible health information from the top-10 official health institutions received close to 55 million views. In April, total views amounted to 296 million and 71 million, respectively. It is important to mention that the latter category encompasses The World Health Organization, The European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control as well as leading health institutes in the United Kingdom, United States, France, Italy and Germany.

*Click below to enlarge (charted by Statista)