Facebook Fact-Checks a Church’s Prayer, Marks It “Partly False Information”

Facebook has fact-checked a church’s prayer, marking the post as “partly false information.”

Saint Alban’s Anglican Church of Maryland posted the prayer, taken from the Book of Common Prayer, to their Facebook page on Wednesday, which included the words:

“In Time of Great Sickness and Mortality. O MOST mighty and merciful God, in this time of grievous sickness, we flee unto thee for succour. Deliver us, we beseech thee, from our peril; give strength and skill to all those who minister to the sick; prosper the means made use for their cure; and grant that, perceiving how frail and uncertain our life is, we may apply our hearts unto that heavenly wisdom which leadeth to eternal life; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.”

Also included in the post was an image of Red Cross nurses standing ready to care for influenza victims during World War I, which coincided with the Spanish flu outbreak.

An independent fact-checker, however, deemed the post “Partly false information”, hid the image of the nurses and attached a warning message to the post that says, “To help stop the spread of false news, a notice will be added to your post if you decide to share this.”

The notice takes readers to an article written in French, which when translated, has the title: “Can we compare the measures taken against the Spanish flue of 1918 and against the COVID-19?”