The World Health Organization conducted an exhaustive meeting with the leading tech companies to discuss the various solutions and probable steps to deal with the coronavirus outbreak. The meeting included tech giants like Facebook, Google, and Amazon. The meeting was held at the Facebook campus at Menlo Park, California.
WHO Hosted Meeting with Tech Firms on Coronavirus
WHO discussed its approach to coronavirus and also discussed with the attending companies about their ideas on dealing with coronavirus. Each of the participating companies presented their views in a few minutes. Since the participating companies were competitors, they agreed not to share the internal efforts publicly.
Major Tech Companies Attended the Meeting
As per the insider’s reports, the meeting had representation from various leading tech firms like Youtube, Twilio, Verizon, Google, Twitter, and Salesforce. It also included companies like Mapbox, Kinsa, Airbnb. Uber, Apple, and Lyft were reportedly invited but did not attend the meeting.
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Tech Firms Discussed Ideas to Deal with Misinformation
The companies worked on their strategy to tame down the fake news and misinformation spread across social media platforms about the coronavirus outbreak. Andy Pattison from WHO said that the Big tech companies are now coming together to work against fake news. He further added that the WHO is offering to help companies to check the information available online posted by their users, rather than relying on third parties, which is offering to help the companies.
Coronavirus Misinformation may Trouble People
People are continuously reaching out to online resources to get information about coronavirus. Hackers and destructive forces are taking benefit of the situation to gain monetary benefits by fooling people with misinformation. There are books available on Amazon that talk about coronavirus and news stories on various Social media platforms to misguide people.
Andy Pattison from WHO Detailed about the Issue
Pattison added that Twitter and YouTube and other social media sites are still awash with misinformation.”
He said,
βThe purpose of that was to plant seeds of ideas, and it worked well. I encouraged collaboration and innovation. During a crisis, it’s a good time for that.”
Tech Firms Agree to work together
The companies said that they would work collaboratively to create better awareness about the coronavirus outbreak and even set up a call center for people to seek advice. Better content and filtered information to people would help them stay safe from coronavirus and not fall prey to misinformation.