Facebook announced that it will ban advertisements regarding face masks due to coronavirus. Accordingly, the company tries to stop exploitation regarding the virus outbreak through the platform.
The tech giant will officially apply the ban several days from now on. Additionally, the ban will take effect in Facebook-owned social media platforms and marketplace.
Rob Leathern, Facebook’s director of product management, said that the company has been closely monitoring the updates of the epidemic on the platforms. Accordingly, its team often found certain products that claim to be able to utterly prevent diseases from infecting the wearers.
“Our teams are monitoring the COVID-19 situation closely and will make necessary updates to our policies if we see people trying to exploit this public health emergency,” he stated.
Regarding the ban, Facebook is not the only party expressing concerns over exploitation and mass-information pertaining to coronavirus. The exploitation does not come solely from particular face mask manufacturers who generate false claims. But it is beyond that.
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The Facebook Case is Not the Only Problem with Coronavirus and Face Mask Exploitation
Apart from what Facebook addressed, the problem with coronavirus exploitation goes beyond opportunistic product sales. Although that might be the root of the problems, the effect has become much more worse.
It is false or misinformation that leads to improper perception regarding the phenomena. Of those, the sales of face masks in various countries all around the globe drastically rises. Hence, it mostly makes the products out of stock.
For instance, in the US, people arguably overreact to the outbreak as, in most states, people hunt and overbuy face masks, causing mass depletion. US Surgeon General even warned the public not to buy face masks anymore.
According to the surgeon general, wearing a face mask to prevent ones from getting the virus is ineffective, even irrational. In other words, face masks are for those who are sick or, in this case, have the virus, so that they won’t contaminate others who are healthy.
However, with the depleting stocks all over the place, it will greatly endanger the community as medical workers currently face verily limited face mask supplies. Regarding the situations, however, the US is not the only one as other countries are also facing indifferent problems.
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