Misinformation During a Pandemic (April 19, 2020). University of Chicago, Becker Friedman Institute for Economics Working Paper No. 2020-44. “We study the effects of news coverage of the novel coronavirus by the two most widely-viewed cable news shows in the United States – Hannity and Tucker Carlson Tonight, both on Fox News – on viewers’ behavior and downstream health outcomes
From director Robert Bingaman, a video interpretation of a timely passage from John Donne’s Devotions upon Emergent Occasionswhich was written by Donne in 1623 while recovering from a serious illness. The passage is from Meditation XVII and is paired in the video with images of businesses and public places emptied out by the pandemic.
No man is an island, entire of itself; every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main. If a clod be washed away by the sea, Europe is the less, as well as if a promontory were, as well as if a manor of thy friend’s or of thine own were: any man’s death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind, and therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee.
In early March, Dr. Caroline Schulman was responsible for calling patients at her hospital to tell them they had tested positive for Covid-19. She shared some of her experiences in a piece for Stat.
Erik lives with his entire family in a one-room rental house with eight other occupants. He didn’t understand the precautions for preventing the spread of Covid-19 and had regularly been socializing in the apartment. He kept asking how to file for unemployment and how to isolate the household when the house itself could barely hold those living in it.
Just the facts
According to the Post, Trump spoke or tweeted 16,241 false or
misleading statements during his first three years as president. That’s an
average of a remarkable 15 misleading claims per day.
Here are
some harmful COVID-19 hoaxes
Desperate
for protection against COVID-19, some people are acting on dangerous
misinformation they've found online. Fact-checkers need help sharing the
articles that debunk the most life-threatening hoaxes. And all authorities
should get involved too.
In
Tunisia and other Arabic-speaking
countries, and in North
Macedonia and Greece, the dangerous idea of gargling with Betadine — a
topical antiseptic — to avoid COVID-19 has gone viral. Fact-checkers have
repeatedly debunked this information and warned that it can harm the mouth,
tongue, lips and throat.
On
March 14, worried about the spread of the new virus in India, a group of 200
Hindus gathered in Delhi for a cow
urine drinking party. Yes — you read that right.
For
religious reasons (and following viral posts), the group met to share Gomutra
(cow urine). They believed it could prevent or cure the new coronavirus,
ignoring fact-checks
published in India and messages from health authorities. There is no evidence
that cow urine has anti-viral properties and, even though it is primarily
water, it can contain harmful substances if the animal was exposed to
chemical residues.
Arbidol,
a Soviet-era drug, is the third in this list of popular and dangerous hoaxes
because its users have a false sense of security. Politicians
and digital influencers in Italy helped spread this Russian anti-flu
drug found in pharmacies as a prevention or miracle cure for COVID-19.
Arbidol, however, has not been approved for use in Europe or in the United
States. In 2007, the Russian Academy of Medical Sciences found
this substance to be “obsolete with unproven effectiveness.”
How
about pure alcohol? Yes. People are drinking that too, believing it could
prevent COVID-19. According to the Iranian
Tasnim News Agency, at least 2,197 people have been poisoned by alcohol
across Iran since February, when the first cases of coronavirus was reported
there. A total of 244 people had already died from this.
And
what has been the goal for fact-checkers in a situation where hoaxes can be
immediately dangerous or falsely reassure people? The fact-checking community
should (and is) prioritizing the questions that seem most dangerous and
sharing their conclusions about them as quickly as possible.
Some
fact-checking organizations, however, receive more than 2,000 queries per day
from readers hungry for accurate information. Counting only on fact-checkers
is risky. Authorities, celebrities and media can and should use their
influence to share fact-checks about life-threatening hoaxes.
–
Cristina Tardáguila, IFCN
. . . technology
- Three far-right, pro-gun activists are behind some of
the largest Facebook groups calling for anti-quarantine protests around
the country, The
Washington Post reported.
- Facebook CEO
Mark Zuckerberg told ABC News in an interview this week that the
platform is classifying as “harmful misinformation” some posts from
people organizing protests aimed at defying social distancing rules.
"It's important that people can debate policy, so there's a line
on this,” he told George Stephanopoulos.
- Zuckerberg’s comments
prompted a tweet
from Sen. Marsha Blackburn, a Republican from Tennessee and a critic
of tech companies, who said “we are closely watching.”
. . . politics
·
The
U.S. State Department is worried about a barrage of new coronavirus
disinformation aimed at America from the Russian, Chinese and Iranian
governments. Politico
reported Tuesday that the U.S sees the three governments pushing "a host
of matching messages, including that the novel coronavirus is an American
bioweapon." The New York Times did
a similar piece on Wednesday.
·
Russian
nationals in Italy are offering Italians money to film themselves thanking
Russia and President Vladimir Putin for recent coronavirus aid, Italy’s La
Repubblica newspaper reported
Sunday. The Russian embassy said it was unaware of the effort.
. . . science and
health
·
After
members of the ruling party in India blamed Muslims for spreading the new
coronavirus, The
Telegraph reported on Monday that two newborn babies died in the country
after hospitals refused to admit their Muslim mothers. It’s another
indication of rising
Islamophobia in India.
·
LNP’s
Mike Wereschagin has a good
piece out of Pittsburgh exploring how COVID-19 is feeding conspiracy
theories and disinformation campaigns. “The pandemic exacerbates the problem,
but its tendrils reach into nearly every major public policy issue of the
day,” he wrote.
AFP
found
a video shared thousands of times on several social media platforms
purporting to show hundreds of Nigerians scrambling for food as a result of
the COVID-19 outbreak. Among those who shared it was a Nigerian senator who
called on the government to do something because “Nigerians are hungry.”
It’s
true that the coronavirus-related lockdown in Nigeria has cut people off from
their only source of income, AFP said, and local authorities are providing
relief packages to help.
But
the widely shared video was old. It was recorded more than a year ago in
Lagos as a political party distributed rice to woo voters ahead of the 2019
gubernatorial election, AFP said. To figure that out, the fact-checkers used
reverse image searches that led them to the earlier footage.
What we liked: Context is everything. AFP’s
fact-check included its own video of a coronavirus food distribution event in
Nigeria It showed that people were not social-distancing, and were eager to
get the food, but in a more orderly fashion than the people in the video from
a year earlier.
— Susan Benkelman, API
1.
The
International Fact-Checking Network carried out a six-month review and has
just updated its Code
of Principles. After two months, the IFCN is again accepting
applications.
4.
Media
Matters reported that an
April 16 YouTube video suggesting the novel coronavirus is a “false flag”
to force “mandatory vaccines” has racked up millions of views.
5.
Bellingcat’s
Aric Toler had
some qualms with that recent New York Times article on Russian
disinformation. Foreign Policy weighed
in, too.
7.
The
Washington Post announced that Scribner will publish a book that compiles
work from the Post’s Fact Checker team cataloguing President Donald Trump's
false and misleading claims.
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