ISLAMABAD: The Government of Pakistan has partnered with Facebook in their fight against COVID-19 misinformation, according to a statement issued today (Tuesday).
In Pakistan, over 32 million people received authoritative information regarding Covid-19 prevention and vaccination through social media messaging campaigns conducted by the Ministry of Health and the Ministry of Information’s Digital Media Wing in partnership with Facebook.
Facebook provided Marketing Partner Support and Ad Credits for these campaigns and helped the government increase its engagement rates with the public on these posts between March 16 and April 6, 2021.
As part of these campaigns, Facebook and the Ministries focused on creating videos and messages on boosting greater Vaccine Confidence amongst the nation. The messaging campaigns helped the Ministry of Health increase its total number of page likes to 470,000 – increasing the government’s ability to connect with and provide information to its stakeholders.
As COVID-19 vaccines are becoming more readily available to larger groups, Facebook launched new Facebook profile frames in partnership with the Ministry of Health that allow users to share their support for getting vaccinated with their family and friends.
Speaking in regard to the support extended by Facebook Special Assistant to Prime Minister (SAPM) Dr Faisal Sultan said, “We are appreciative of the support extended by Facebook in our fight against COVID-19. We reached 76% of our target population through our social media messaging campaigns.”
A campaign to create awareness about spotting COVID-19 related misinformation on social media was also launched in Urdu for the Facebook community in Pakistan in partnership with the Ministry of Information’s Digital Media Wing.
Fawad Chaudhry, Minister for Information & Broadcasting stated, “We appreciate the hard work put in by the Ministry of Health and the Digital Media Wing of Government of Pakistan in bringing together an engaging campaign in partnership with Facebook.
“It is crucial to differentiate between information and misinformation in the age of digital communication. Facebook has supported the spread of accurate information through their drive of removing misinformation and fact checking of news,” he added.
Facebook has worked to take aggressive steps to remove harmful misinformation and connect people to resources from health authorities. Since the start of the pandemic in March 2020, Facebook removed more than 16 million pieces of content from Facebook and Instagram globally for violations against our policies on Covid-19-related misinformation and harm.
Imran Ghazali, General Manager at Digital Media Wing (DMW), said, “One of the important step to win the battle against COVID-19 is to create awareness among masses with the latest and authentic health information and at the same time fight the disinformation on social media.”
“In this regard, our partnership with Facebook has played a critical role in reaching the masses with information related to vaccine registration, following of SOPs and we will continue to work with Facebook to reach and engage more citizens across Pakistan,” he concluded.
