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The United Nations believes that the coronavirus pandemic has brought another pandemicalong with itself – infodemic.
Hence, the multilateral organisation has laid its plans to battle misinformation and fake news.
According to the report published in the World Economic Forum’s platform, with a huge public demand for information about the pandemic and the rapid spread of false information, the ‘infodemic’ is putting lives at risk.
“When Covid-19 emerged, it was clear from the outset this was not just a public health emergency, but a communications crisis as well,” says Melissa Fleming, who leads global communications for the United Nations. Fleming is heading a campaign to help true information surface out of the deluge of rumors and lies.
She has launched ‘Verified’, where people can sign up for daily emails on the latest Covid news that comes from reliable sources: science-based information that might otherwise be buried on “page 125 of a PDF”, presented “in formats that are optimised for sharing on social media”.
“It is front-and-center in your social media feeds. So, it can compete with the slick misinformation content,” Fleming said.
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The UN is also encouraging people to stop rushing to re-post potentially dubious content, promoting the hashtag #PledgetoPause.
“We’re trying to create this new social norm called ‘pause - take care before you share’. We’re equipping people, through this new social norm, with a bit of ‘information skepticism’,” Fleming said.
Role of social-media influencers
The UN is also encouraging social-media influencers to help spread real news about the pandemic.
“So far, we’ve recruited 110,000 information volunteers, and we equip these information volunteers with the kind of knowledge about how misinformation spreads and ask them to serve as kind of 'digital first-responders’ in those spaces where misinformation travels,” Fleming said.
The Security General of the UN took to Twitter to share his video and wrote: During the #COVID19 pandemic, the wrong information can be deadly. Join me in taking the #PledgetoPause before sharing and help stop the spread of misinformation online. https://takecarebeforeyoushare.org.”
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