Reports to Governments, the EU Commission, and the WHO

NewsGuard’s Reports to Governments and the World Health Organization

NewsGuard’s Reports to Governments, the EU Commission, and the World Health Organization

In August 2020, NewsGuard announced a partnership with the World Health Organization to combat online misinformation about COVID-19 and vaccines. Since then, NewsGuard has sent the WHO a variety of reports and data highlighting trending health hoaxes and conspiracies across Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, and YouTube, which the WHO has been able to share with digital platforms to alert them to misinformation and hoaxes on their platforms. These reports identify large social media pages, accounts, and public and private groups that encourage the spread of false and often dangerous narratives about the virus and vaccines.

In June 2022, NewsGuard also became a signatory to the European Commission’s Code of Practice on Disinformation. As a signatory, NewsGuard provides transparent and timely information on its research to the European Commission and other interested parties. 

The pages, groups, and accounts identified in the reports presented here were identified by NewsGuard in various ways: by tracking the spread of websites with low NewsGuard Trust Scores within these groups or posted by pages or accounts; by identifying social media actors repeating false narratives catalogued in NewsGuard’s Misinformation Fingerprint database; or by clicking through the platforms’ own suggestions to users about which groups and pages to follow.

These reports for the WHO, the EU Commission, and other governments and elected officials demonstrate how social media environments, despite their efforts to control dangerous hoaxes on healthcare and other topics, continue to overload users with false misinformation.

Below are our highlights from our most recent reports. As we continue to prepare these reports, they will be posted here.

—Eric Effron, Editorial Director

NewsGuard Reports to Governments and WHO:

By Lorenzo Arvanitis, Sara Badilini, Jack Brewster, Alex Cadier, Zack Fishman, Eleonora Francica, Anna-Sophie Harling, Chine Labbe, Edward O’Reilly, Virginia Padovese, Leonia Pfaller, Giulia Pozzi, Marie Richter, Roberta Schmid, Katharina Stahlhofen, Sophia Tewa Louise Vallee and Macrina Wang