World Health Organization holds coronavirus talks with tech giants

Google, Facebook, Amazon and other tech giants spent a day in secretive talks with the World Health Organization to tackle the spread of coronavirus misinformation.

Social media companies including Twitter and Youtube have already been working to remove post about the virus that are proved to be fake.

The World Health Organization (WHO) has offered to work directly with the companies on fact checking in a bid to speed up the process. 

Posts on the virus that needed to be removed have ranged from those calling it a fad disease or created by the government to claims it can be treated with oregano oil.

Companies at the meeting agreed to work with WHO on collaborative tools, better content and a call centre for people to call for advice, the Daily Mail reports, citing CNBC.

Cyber security experts warn that some malicious links posing as innocent articles or videos about the outbreak of the killer Wuhan virus actually contains code designed to pilfer personal information.

Hackers are spreading articles, posts and videos masked as legitimate file formats, such as PDFs or MP4s, to hide their true nature. 

If clicked on and downloaded onto a phone or computer, hackers can gain access to the user's stored information and can destroy, block or copy data at will.