Google to provide Covid vaccine information panels
Google have announced a new feature on Search to provide users with official information about Covid vaccines.
The feature is designed to prevent the spread of disinformation and conspiracy theories surrounding the vaccines.
The search engine will provide a list of authorised vaccines in their location, as well as information panels on each individual vaccine.
This new feature follows the success of the Covid-19 information panels on YouTube which connect people directly to global and local health authorities. These panels were viewed 400bn times.
However, this number of views is also symptomatic of the interest in Covid conspiracy theories as the video channel did not ban misinformation about vaccines until October. They subsequently removed 700,000 videos related to dangerous or misleading Covid medical information.
To combat this, Google announced that it will give $250m in ad grants to over 100 government agencies to run public service announcements. They will also give $15 million to assist the World Health Organisation’s campaign.
Other initiatives announced by the tech giant include a “COVID-19 Vaccine Media Hub” which will support fact-checking research at Columbia, George Washington and Ohio State universities.