Volume 1, Issue 3

The extraordinary spread of misinformation during the COVID-19 pandemic is impressive. And, to public health professionals like us, it’s worrying: We know that good information and good health go hand in hand. Knowing what we do about the practice of public health and what the science tells us about how people fall for misinformation, we see promising strategies for intervention in our own field.

To gain insight into how Chinese state media is communicating about the coronavirus pandemic to the outside world, we analyzed a collection of posts from their English-language presence on Facebook. We observed three recurring behaviors: sharing positive stories and promoting the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) pandemic response, rewriting recent history in a manner favorable to the CCP as the coronavirus pandemic evolved, and using targeted ads to spread preferred messages.

This study indicates that, during the first phase of the coronavirus (SARS-CoV-2) pandemic in 2020, citizens from the US, UK, Netherlands, and Germany experienced relatively high levels of mis- and disinformation in their general information environment. We asked respondents to indicate the extent to which they experienced that information on coronavirus (SARS-CoV-2 and the disease it causes, COVID-19) was simply inaccurate (misinformation) or intentionally misleading (disinformation).

As misinformation and disinformation spread more rapidly and widely than ever before, individuals have been encouraged to be critical consumers of all received information. At the heart of this point of contention is the question of where responsibility and fault should lie.

Identifying emerging health misinformation is a challenge because its manner and type are often unknown. However, many social media users correct misinformation when they encounter it. From this intuition, we implemented a strategy that detects emerging health misinformation by tracking replies that seem to provide accurate information.

When Italy became the western center of the COVID-19 outbreak, it also became the focus of a series of states-sponsored coordinated disinformation campaigns. From early March through May 2020, disinformation operations in the country have increased noticeably, showing evidence of evolving strategies from multiple state actors geared towards reshaping the narrative of the global COVID-19 crisis and pushing forward geopolitical interests.

Special Issue on COVID-19 & Misinfodemics, Guest-Editors’ Editorial.

By Meghan McGinty

Department of Environmental & Occupational Health Sciences, University of Washington, USA

Nat Gyenes

Berkman Klein Center for Internet and Society, Harvard University, USA

Image by Brian McGowan on UNSPLASH

On January 7th, 2020, Chinese authorities identified a new type of coronavirus, which was subsequently named severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2).1https://www.who.int/docs/default-source/coronaviruse/situation-reports/20200121-sitrep-1-2019-ncov.pdf?sfvrsn=20a99c10_4

Access to accurate and up-to-date information is essential for individual and collective decision making, especially at times of emergency. On February 26, 2020, two weeks before the World Health Organization (WHO) officially declared the COVID-19’s emergency a “pandemic,” we systematically collected and analyzed search results for the term “coronavirus” in three languages from six search engines. We

As conspiracy theories about COVID-19 take root in the United States, understanding the psychological foundations of conspiracy beliefs is increasingly critical. Our research shows that beliefs in two popular variants of COVID-19 conspiracy theory are the joint product of the psychological predispositions 1) to reject information coming from experts and other authority figures and 2) to view major events as the product of conspiracies, as well as partisan and ideological motivations.

This paper discusses patterns of public health misinformation observed during infectious disease epidemics. Specifically, we group epidemic-related misinformation into four categories: transmission, prevention, treatment, and vaccination. By developing tools, algorithms, and other resources around these categories, institutions, companies, and individuals can proactively limit and counter the spread of misinformation and its potential negative health effects.