Facebook Reaches 800,000 People in Papua New Guinea with COVID-19 Education Campaign

Auckland, 27th September 2021 - Facebook reached an estimated 800,000 people living in Papua New Guinea with resources on how to identify and combat health-related misinformation in a five week campaign. 

Following the success of the campaign, Facebook will this week begin re-running the Fight COVID-19 Misinformation campaign in Tok Pisin and English in PNG.

The figures released today highlight ongoing measures Facebook is taking to reduce the spread of COVID-19 misinformation by directing people how to spot misinformation and prevent sharing it. 

“Many countries across the region, including PNG, face ongoing public health and economic challenges brought about by the pandemic, we want to make sure people in PNG know to spot misinformation and access credible information on COVID-19 and the COVID-19 vaccine.

Following the success of the first education campaign and the increased rollout of the COVID-19 vaccine, we want to ensure people in PNG have readily available official public health resources and make informed decisions about the information they see on Facebook. This is in addition to COVID-19 Information Centre - the dedicated surface on Facebook where we promote PNG Government and international health information. We will continue to work with our partners to help connect people with reliable information,” says Nick McDonnell, Head of Public Policy for New Zealand and Pacific Islands.

The Fight COVID-19 Misinformation campaign was created in consultation with the World Health Organization (WHO) and ran in eight Pacific Islands countries and territories in 2021 including the Cook Islands, Fiji, New Caledonia, Papua New Guinea, Samoa, Solomon Islands, Tonga, and Wallis and Futuna. Languages included English, Fijian iTaukei, Fiji Hindi, French, Samoan, Solomon Islands Pijin, Tok Pisin and Tongan. It will also launch this week in French Polynesia, Kiribati and Vanuatu in English, French, Bislama and Kiribati. 

ENDS 

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