Covid-19 misinformation and disinformation were prevalent, with fake news and conspiracy theories doing their rounds worldwide. The spread of this misinformation caused a lot of havoc as correct information about Covid-19 was being overshadowed, and people believed false and inaccurate information, which would cause trouble later on.
Tech Companies and Covid-19
Tech companies played a crucial role in the spread of misinformation and disinformation on Covid-19. Tech companies such as Google, Facebook, Twitter and many more were vital information sources on the pandemic, but not all information provided on Covid-19 was factual.
Facebook and its researchers had a deep knowledge of Covid-19 misinformation and disinformation spreading over and around its platform but did not act on it.
The company ran studies and produced extensive internal reports on who was most likely to share misinformation on Covid-19 but were not transparent even with mounting pressure from lawmakers to share much of this information publicly.
The company employees showed that Covid-19 disinformation misinformation was dominant on its platforms and how they extensively studied Covid-19 misinformation on its media as Covid-19 ravaged the world.
However, to the public, the company executives focused on commenting on the positives of their social networking’s Covid-19 pandemic response and how many pieces of information it had taken down from its platforms. This showed that Facebook was more concerned about its PR moves than tackling misinformation and disinformation on its platforms, creating a mini pandemic, an “infodemic,” to be specific.
Google was also a key player in spreading misinformation. Through news, articles, blogs and also images found on its platforms, misinformation spread like wildfire.
Google did not show if blogs posted to the internet about Covid-19 were either factual or accurate. This led to many people posting, publishing, and printing false and fake information, which caused panic and havoc, others’ death, while others brought about phobias.
For example, CNN published news about a possible lockdown in Lombardy, a region in Italy. This was before even the country’s prime minister had even the chance to talk on the matter. This caused panic as people started to run away from the area disrupting the government’s aim to contain the epidemic and causing contagion.
Twitter also did not regulate false information at first. People tweeted random incorrect information on Covid-19, and the report went viral. As most people were at home, they were browsing through the platform where news was easy to find. People thought that the provided information was accurate, which was not and acted upon it in real-time. This brought danger to them as the news was misleading, and Twitter was not working on it.
