Technology

At long last, herean actually useful purpose for Twitter blue-check verification mark: Twitter last night announced that it is mobilising the badge system to help surface and signal more authoritative and verified voices that can provide &credible updates& on the topic of the coronavirus, and made a general call out for people that are experts to get all of their information up to date — including associating the word addresses with their accounts — to speed up this process.

This is the latest move from Twitter in what has been an ongoing effort to clear its platform of false information and the harmful spread of it as the pandemic increasingly takes its grip on the world.

The blue check mark was always intended to help steer people to know when they looking at more authentic voices or the official accounts for high-profile people or organizations, although italso been a huge vanity metric for many people, and so has often had a taint of the more ridiculous side of Twitter (the one where people also obsess over like and retweet counts). So harnessing it for a truly useful purpose is a great move.

Italso one that is linking up with other efforts online: yesterday Google launched an updated search experience that includes a carousel of Twitter accounts Tweeting information related to the pandemic. This will help Twitter and Google populate that in a more informative and dynamic way.

If you are an expert who would like to use Twitter to broadcast more effective messages to the public, please read on. And if you are an authority who is not affiliated with one of the authorities working on fighting and managing the coronavirus outbreak, hold tight as Twitter said it will also be working on how to more quickly verify you, too.

Twitter said it is working with global health authorities — these include organizations like the WHO, the CDC, state health authorities and recognized academic institutions — to identify not just these organizations& own accounts but those of experts affiliated with them. While it has it has &already Verified hundreds of accounts,& there are many more to verify, but the process is being slowed down by people not having all of their information in order. (Essentially these are some of the usual requirements for verification, applied specifically now to coronavirus experts.)

Specifically, Twitter said that experts needed to make sure that the email address that a person has associated with their Twitter account is their work emails. Instructions on how to do that here.

Then, Twitter said that a personbio needs to include references and a link to the place where they are working, and ideally that the page they are linking to also includes a reference back to the Twitter account (if ita link to a bio page). Instructions on how to update your profile here.

And accounts that are looking for verification, it goes without saying, have to follow the officialTwitter Rules (which cover things like no harassment, impersonation accounts and so on), and specifically as it relates to coronavirus and COVID-19, Twitterguidance for that.

Twitter had, predictably, what looked like hundreds of responses to its Tweets on this subject, both from people simply saying, &Hey, what about me? Can I get verified today for my birthday?!& and those saying they also should be verified because of their authoritative position on COVID-19. Going about how to do the latter with accuracy will be a much bigger challenge that Twitter is still working out. &We&re also considering a way to take public suggestions, but first are reviewing the suggestions we have from global public health authorities and partners,& it concluded.

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Google says coronavirus has become its biggest search topic by a country mile this year, and to continue its efforts to harness that attention in the best possible way, late on Friday the company launched a new information portal dedicated to the pandemic as well as an improved search experience for desktop and mobile.

The search experience, Google says, was updated in response to &peopleinformation needs expanding,& while the new information portal also provides the basic, most useful information (for example around symptoms), plus a lot of links and on-site options to explore further.

Something notably absent on Googlepage or search experience are any links to conversation forums or places to hear and talk to other average people. Google has never been particularly successful in its many efforts to break into social media and this underscores that, while also helping it steer away from the fact that many of these forums are not always well managed. I would imagine that more tools for direct communication, such as the Google Hangouts product, and possibly others in that same category, might well be added or linked to as well over time.

Letdive into some more details.

The new search experience now not only includes search results but also a number of additional links to &authoritative information& from health authorities and updated data and visualisations.

&This new format organizes the search results page to help people easily navigate information and resources, and it will also make it possible to add more information over time as it becomes available,& Emily Moxley, Googleproduct manager for search, writes in a blog post.

The search experience now also includes links to a Twitter carousel featuring accounts from civic organizations local to you, and also a new &most common questions& section related to the pandemic from the World Health Organization and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

This is rolling out first in the US in English and Google said it would be adding more languages and regions soon.

Meanwhile, the portal — also available first for the US — features tips on staying healthy and advice for those who are concerned; links to further official resources; links to more localised resources; links to fundraising efforts; the latest statistics; and an overview of all of Googleown work (for example, the specific efforts itmaking for educators). We have asked the company when and if it plans to cover other regions beyond the US, and we&ll update this as we learn more.

This is an important move for Google. The internet has figured as critical platform from the earliest days of the Novel Coronavirus emerging out of China, but it hasn&t all been positive.

On one hand, there has been a ton of misinformation spread around about the virus, and the internet overall (plus specific sites like Googlesearch and social media platforms like Facebook and Twitter) has played a huge role in being responsible for disseminating the majority of that bad news. (Not all those searches and clicks lead to the right information, or good data, unfortunately.)

On the other hand, italso been an indispensable resource: in countries where health services have already become overwhelmed by the influx of people seeking help, official online portals (like this one) are serving a very important role in triaging inbound requests before people resort to physically getting themselves into the system (if they need to). And the internet is the main place people will turn in the days and weeks ahead as they are asked to socially isolate themselves to slow down the spread of the pandemic, serving its role in providing information, but hopefully also some diversion and enrichment.

Googlesite is bringing together as many of the positive and legitimate strands of information as it can.

The main page focuses on the most important basics: an brief overview of the virus, a list of the most common symptoms, a list of most common things you can do to prevent getting infected or spreading the infection and a (very brief, for now) section on treatments.

From this, it goes on to more detailed links to videos and other resources for specific interests such as advice for the elderly, a map-based data overview to monitor what is going on elsewhere; and then resources for further help for topics that are coming up a lot, such as advice for people working from home, or for how to set up self-isolation, online education advice, cooking resources and more. Relief efforts so far only has one link, to the Solidarity Response Fund started by the UN Foundation, which has had a donation of $50 million from Google. \

There are a number of other relief and fundraising efforts underway, including those to help fund the race for research to improve the medical tools and medicine we have to fight this.I think the idea is that all of these sections will grow and evolve as the situation evolves.

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India is turning to WhatsApp, the most popular app in the country, to create awareness about the coronavirus pandemic and has urged social media services to tackle the spread of misinformation on their platforms.

Narendra Modi, IndiaPrime Minister, said on Saturday that citizens in the country can text a WhatsApp bot — called MyGov Corona Helpdesk — to get instant authoritative answers to their coronavirus queries such as the symptoms of the viral disease and how they could seek help.

An individual is required to text +919013151515 (or click on this shortcut link) to connect to the bot.

The bot was built by Mumbai-based firm Haptik Technologies, which local telecom giant Reliance Jio acquired last year, and the information is being provided by the nationMinistry of Health.

&The ‘MyGov Corona Helpdesk& has been engineered to fight rumors, educate the masses and bring a sense of calm to the current chaos-like situation. We are committed to assisting the government with all our possible strengths and resources and hope that this chatbot can help the GoI spread the right information across the nation,& Aakrit Vaish, co-founder and chief executive of Haptik, told TechCrunch.

A screenshot of New DelhiWhatsApp bot

On Thursday, Modi urged the nation1.3 billion citizens to stay at home as much as possible for the next few days to prevent any &explosion& of coronavirus cases.

&For the last few days we have seen that people think we are safe from coronavirus. This is not right. Itnot okay to get complacent,& he said in a nationwide televised appearance.

More than 250 individuals have tested positive for COVID-19 in India so far.

On Friday, IndiaIT ministry issued an advisory to social media giants including Facebook, ByteDance, Twitter, and Sharechat, to take immediate actions to remove or disable fake content around coronavirus.

&Intermediaries are urged to initiate awareness campaign on their platforms for the users not to upload/ circulate any false news/misinformation concerning coronavirus which are likely to create panic among public and disturb the public order and social tranquility,& it said.

Earlier this week, the World Health Organization partnered with WhatsAppto create a helplinetoprovide people with accurate health information related to the coronavirus.

The WHO Health Alert provides tips on how people could protect themselves, the latest news updates and findings on the pandemic, and answers to some of the frequently asked questions. People can sign up to this bot by clickinghere.

In a statement, Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, Director-General of WHO, said, &digital technology gives us an unprecedented opportunity for vital health information to go viral and spread faster than the pandemic, helping us save lives and protect the vulnerable. We are proud to have partners like Facebook and Whatsapp, that are supporting us in reaching billions of people with important health information.&

WhatsApp, which has been grappling with spread of rumors about the pandemic, began reaching out to dozens of governments last month to assist in their efforts to provide accurate information to the general public, it said.

&As part of our effort to make sure everyone has accurate and timely information about coronavirus, we&re working with the Indian government and national governments around the world,& said Mark Zuckerberg, chief executive of Facebook.

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The offer is part of Square Enix’s Stay Home and Play campaign, started in the midst of the ongoing coronavirus pandemic. Warmed by the global efforts being made to keep people in their homes to r