Information Technology has impacted the way we get information and share it with the public through social media such as Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and WhatsApp. We can confidently say there is no shortage of information when it comes to Covid-19 rather than misinformation and fake news communicated ranging from the nature of the virus to its vaccine.
Fake news is not new, but the platform used is the only new thing about. Propaganda has been around for centuries, and the internet is only the latest means of communication to be abused to spread lies and misinformation.
SARS-CoV-2 is the family of coronavirus known to infect humans from SARS-CoV, MERS-CoV to SARS-CoV-2 known as Covid-19. With a highly mediatized topic in the age of digital media. Covid-19 has its share of misinformation, From conspiracy theories, vaccines and unfounded revelations. There are many questions as to the nature of the coronavirus and its public health implications. The conspiracy theories keep coming. Some are claiming that Covid-19 was created in the P4 laboratory in Wuhan, some claim China spread the virus intentionally for economic reasons, while others believe 5G Network is the origin of the virus.
“Hydroxychloroquine & azithromycin, taken together, have a real chance to be the vaccine and one of the biggest game changers in the history of medicine. The FDA has moved mountains – Thank You!” Says Donald Trump, United States President. A day after this tweet, Health officials in Nigeria have issued a warning over chloroquine after three people overdosed on the drug which landed them in hospital.
The first story pushing a connection between 5G and the coronavirus pandemic was on a French conspiracy website called Les moutons enragés, which loosely translates as “The rabid sheep.” A February 20 post floated that the millimeter wave spectrum used by 5G technology and Covid-19, could be related, pointing to reports about Wuhan installing 5G towers before the outbreak. A day later I was surprised to see how this news became a trending topic on twitter, widely discussed on facebook and Instagram as well as numerous WhatsApp broadcast messages regarding the issue.
In other cases, believing that the virus is fake and all the infected persons are only the elites or that the virus cannot infect Africans doesn’t make a difference in how we behave.
The more worrying fake news regarding Covid-19 is about potential cures. Weeks ago tens of people died in Iran after taking local alcohol as a preventive antidote from the virus, another fake news regarding a drug currently being tested (inconclusively so far) as a treatment for Covid-19, and hailed by some as a miracle cure in Madagascar is currently going round. This reminds me of 2014, when a widely shared news on social media made some people believe bathing with salt can protect one from the Ebola virus.
In many cases, people actually share fake news for fun. We are titillated by gross stories It all started with the news that North Korea opens its door to christianity, to Nigerian President, Muhammadu Buhari is a clone version of one Jubril from Sudan, in 2019 the most popular fake story on Facebook was about a lottery winner dumping $200,000 of manure on his ex-boss’s lawn, and another about Barbara Bush dying, we cannot forget the fake news that resulted to the massacre of about 10 muslims Indians.
Why does misinformation flourish? Does all this fake news mean that people are hopelessly gullible, is their anxiety making them receptive to the most blatant baloney?
Freedom of speech is the very cornerstone of democracy, and who is to say what is fake and what is not? Who should be the editor In chief of the Internet? The sway of public opinion can be hugely altered by sharing fake news. It’s clear that something needs to be done, but who should we hand the keys to?
Google has pledged to make sure that every single youtube post in its premium advertising programme is manually reviewed. This is to reassure advertisers that their ads won’t appear during inappropriate content. It isn’t tackling fake news directly, but it is giving businesses more control over the kind of content they want to be associated with. While Twitter says they are working on their Artificial Intelligence filter to deleteTweets which promote fake news. Its aim is to halt the spread of information that, if left unchecked, will continue to cause chaos, citing this would contravene its own safety rules.
WhatsApp, which is owned by Facebook has ramped up its measures to tackle false news across its sites, by limiting the number of contact users can share broadcast messages to. While at the same time developing a fake news detector on facebook application.
Fake news is a problem one we’re yet to solve. While the social media giants are taking steps to try and police content and educate their users, there will be an inevitable blowback on who and which media to trust. Clarity and transparency will be invaluable moving forward, and everyone should be careful when it comes to sharing news on our social media platforms.
Hussaini is a PhD student In Paris University, France
The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect the editorial policy of Sky Daily
