Maarten Schenk, Lead Stories’s Editor and Chief Technologist, said his team has detected a conspiracy theory saying that coronavirus is a Beijing lab-made bioweapon. They have observed the sharing of conspiracy theories on multiple social platforms about the origins of the virus. The information has widely been shared on social media. He noted there are people citing "secret military sources," who almost certainly do not exist, claiming that tens of thousands of people have died as a result of the virus, far in excess of current estimates from official sources.

A Facebook spokesperson said it was working with its fact-checking partners to debunk false claims about the virus. Once Facebook posts  links containing claims that are fact-checked and found to be false, the platform dramatically cuts its distribution and people who see this content, try to share it, or already have, are alerted that it's false.

A Google spokesperson said the company has changed its policy in recent years for Google and its video platform YouTube, which are designed to surface information from authoritative sources at the top of the search results. 

On Twitter, users searching for "coronavirus" in the US and other countries are first prompted to visit official channels of information including local medical agencies and the WHO about the virus.