may be spreading misinformation undermine efforts

26, 2020, Facebook post marking the 200,000th COVID-19 case in Ohio, there were over 232 top-level comments, not counting replies to comments. While the Indiana University study was focused on less-than-reputable primary sources that publish original posts and tweets containing misinformation, over the past two years, our news station has seen a marked increase in misinformation spread on our own Facebook page – not by us, but by the comments and replies to the factual news content we publish.Ī brief analysis of posts on our page suggests that the volume of misinformation coming from those who interact with our social media platforms isn’t slowing down, even as more hard data and factual analysis of COVID-19 and vaccines becomes available. In 2021, 33.3% of traffic to came from social media, and of that, 93% of those sessions came from Facebook.Īre we aiding and abetting the Infodemic? Indeed, our news website’s own metrics back up those figures. adults, versus 12% who get their news from Twitter, according to the study. Facebook is a pathway to consuming online news for about 43% of U.S.

The study found that the ratio of low to high-credibility information is lower on Facebook than Twitter, but the impact of low-credibility content on Facebook may be higher, as 69% of adults in the U.S. These accounts are dubbed “infodemic superspreaders.” The problem is compounded on Facebook, the study’s authors assert, because more low-credibility information is dispersed by “high-status” accounts verified accounts yield almost 20% of original posts and 70% of reshares of low-credibility content there. “The proliferation of false and misleading claims about COVID-19 vaccines is a major challenge to public health authorities around the world, as such claims sow uncertainty, contribute to vaccine hesitancy and generally undermine the efforts to vaccinate as many people as possible,” state the authors of “Studying the COVID-19 infodemic at scale,” published on June 10, 2021.Ī study and scholarly article from May 2021 from the Observatory on Social Media at the University of Indiana found that across Facebook, Twitter and YouTube, “low-credibility content,” as a whole, has a higher prevalence than content from any single high-credibility source. Misinformation about COVID-19 and the vaccines is such a prevalent topic that scholars around the world have labeled the phenomenon the “Infodemic.” And if you're not affirming with your factual news coverage, what the situation should be, they're just going to go to another site that does affirm them.”

“People do not want information anymore in a sectarian society. Michael Bugeja, a professor of media and ethics at the Greenlee School of Journalism at Iowa State University. “We’re not in an age of information anymore,” says Dr. The mid-20th Century is generally considered the beginning of the “Information Age,” with the development of the transistor to the rise of the personal computer in the 1980s and 90s to the ubiquitous adoption of the internet by the year 2000. While we feel we have accomplished that goal as well as any news outlet could in these times, we have also seen the rise of misinformation about COVID-19 and the vaccines coming not only from less-reputable sources, but on our own social media platforms, in the comments and replies laden with conspiracies, misrepresentations, and outright lies about this global health crisis.įrom the 'Information Age' to the 'Affirmation Age' Since the outbreak of the coronavirus pandemic, our news station’s goal has been to deliver the most accurate, truthful and up-to-date information about COVID-19 as possible.

May be spreading misinformation undermine efforts