Misinformation on Covid-19 risky: Think before sharing
By Christopher Owuor, March 17, 2020Tom Phillips
Since the outbreak of the new coronavirus, there has been a litany of false claims and exaggerations. Much of this has originated and spread on social media.
As is common during global news events —especially health crises—some have sought to pin the blame on familiar enemies, whether it is 5G technology or Chinese lab scientists.
Many people have spread conspiracy theories, playing on our fears by suggesting that somehow the institutions that are supposed to protect us somehow had forewarning of the global outbreak of this deadly virus.
But of particular concern in the short term are those spreading false or misleading health advice.
This is often done with the best of intentions—it’s a natural response to a scary situation to pass on advice that you think might help protect your friends and family.
But if that information turns out to be inaccurate, you risk doing more harm than good.
The misinformation we’ve seen broadly falls into three separate categories. Some, such as the claim that children are immune, that the symptoms in children are generally less severe than they are in older people.
But without the proper context and caveats, these morph over time into something more dangerous.
Children may suffer less from the virus, but they could still pass it on to more vulnerable friends and family.
Others revolve around misconceptions of the term “coronavirus” itself. Without the crucial context that coronaviruses are a large family of viruses that we’ve known about since the 1960s, perfectly normal references to coronaviruses that predate this outbreak can suddenly seem like evidence of a conspiracy.
And so we end up with people believing that vaccine trials for previously existing coronaviruses show the outbreak was manufactured, or even that the makers of Dettol somehow knew about the outbreak in advance, because they list “human coronavirus” on their bottles.
The third type is bad information masquerading as official health guidelines and advice.
This week, the UK Department for Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS) and the NHS both announced measures designed to combat bad information around this coronavirus.
The NHS has teamed up with tech giants such as Twitter and Facebook to signpost official advice on their platforms.
While these announcements are welcome, it is just as important to challenge bad information as it is to direct people to reliable advice.
A Facebook post shared more than 300,000 times made some dangerous claims. Chief among them was the “advice” that a runny nose means you have a common cold, not Covid-19.
This is wrong; this symptom is rarer in Covid-19 sufferers, but it does not rule it out. The post also made the unfounded claim that the virus will die in temperatures above 27°C.
It’s right that social media platforms have come under scrutiny. But we’ve also seen misleading claims emerge from traditional print and broadcast media.
Journalists have also reported several false claims and conspiracy theories on the new coronavirus.
Many media outlets have been behaving responsibly, but we deserve better than the exaggeration and speculation.
The good news is that we all, journalists and citizens alike, can take steps to slow the spread of misleading claims.
By taking time to think before you share – about where a claim has come from, how you might check its contents, and how it makes you feel – we’re less likely to inadvertently pass on bad information that puts our friends and family at an even greater risk.
We face a global public health crisis in the age of unprecedented and rampant misinformation. Good health advice can make the difference between life and death. —The article first appeared on www.theguardian.com