Alongside COVID-19 as a viral pandemic, the World Health Organization was quick to declare COVID-19 an infodemic, a superabundance of online and offline information with the potential to undermine public health efforts. Here, Dr. Elinor Carmi, Dr. Myrto Aloumpi and Dr. Elena Musi discuss how philosophical fallacies can be instrumentalised in response to the COVID-19 … Continued
Category: fake news
Despite concerns, COVID-19 shows how social media has become an essential tool in the democratisation of knowledge
Social media has played a significant role in mediating the communication of information about COVID-19, although coverage of social media is more often than not negative. In this post, Ronnie Das and Wasim Ahmed, highlight some of the ways in which social media has become essential to societal responses to the crisis and how social … Continued
Between fast science and fake news: Preprint servers are political
Preprints servers have become a vital medium for the rapid sharing of scientific findings. This has been made clear by the speed with which researchers have developed new knowledge about the Covid-19 pandemic. However, this speed and openness has also contributed to the ability of low quality preprints to derail public debate and feed conspiracy … Continued
Don’t Just Debunk Covid-19 Myths. Learn From Them
The spread of Covid-19 across the globe has gone hand in hand with the spread of rumours and myth about the virus. In this repost, Anita Makri, discusses how social science research has played a vital role in responding to previous epidemics and argues that rather seeing Covid-19 myths as a problem of information deficit, they … Continued
Book Review: This Is Not Propaganda: Adventures in the War Against Reality by Peter Pomerantsev
In This Is Not Propaganda: Adventures in the War Against Reality, Peter Pomerantsev takes readers on a gripping journey through the disinformation age, drawing on his own family history as well as encounters with numerous figures positioned on both sides of the information spectrum: those working to manipulate our perceptions and those engaged in the struggle for a more facts-based public sphere. Ignas Kalpokas highly […]
Bad News – A psychological ‘vaccine’ against fake news
‘Fake news’ and the manipulation of news media have become a fixture of the current political moment. Whereas, attempts have been made to regulate fake news and to direct internet users to more authoritative sources of information, these initiatives have also come under criticism for being overzealous and a break on press freedoms. In the post, Sander van der Linden […]
Do social media companies undervalue the expertise of online communities?
Type vaccines into twitter and under a new initiative you will be prompted towards information supplied by expert institutions such as the NHS or US Department of Health and Human Services. However, by directing audiences to these sources, do social media companies overlook the important role played by online communities of lay experts? In this post Stefania Vicari explores how […]
For a Civil Internet – How the tone of online conversations can build trust
The internet is a challenging environment for those looking to engage in enlightened public discourse. In this repost, Fabio Sabatini and Tommaso Reggiani present evidence showing how, although incivility has become the default setting for online conversations, where debate is civil it has a corresponding effect on levels of trust. Suggesting that an appropriate policy response to the incivility of the internet, […]
Establishing trust between researchers, government and the public: proposing an integrated process for evidence synthesis and policy development
The journey from evidence to policy is inevitably complex and frequently becomes divisive as arguments rage about the validity and worth of the evidence presented. This is especially true in the “post-truth” era, where the opinions of experts are viewed with scepticism, opposing views (and evidence) are dismissed as “fake news”, and social media algorithms have fostered an “echo chamber” […]
There is a large disparity between what people see in social media about health research and the underlying strength of evidence
Our social media feeds are full of articles shared by friends and family that make claims about how something can prevent a particular health condition. But how robust is the scientific evidence base underpinning these claims? Noah Haber, Alexander Breskin, Ellen Moscoe and Emily R. Smith, on behalf of the CLAIMS team, report on a systematic review of the state of […]