Since the world is plagued by the Covid-19 pandemic, we are often misinformed about the nature of the virus.
This is mostly due to its ever-evolving nature that is yet to be completely understand by today’s society.
The Covid-19 pandemic is the perfect example how the society can easily be misinformed due to the spread of vast amount of incorrect and unconfirmed information.
The term misinformation can be referred to information that is either incorrect or inaccurate and it is often spread widely with people regardless of the intention.
The misleading information is created or shared without the intention to manipulate or deceive people.
Perhaps the most accurate example of this is how people would often share news or information that is yet to be confirmed to be true, before finding out later it is false.
With technology, you or somebody you know might have shared an article that is believed to be true on social media, but later discover to be a hoax or an outdated information.
For example, misinformation of Covid-19 that surfaces on social media (especially on Facebook) has led certain people in the society to believe that the pandemic may not be real even when they are in their death bed due to the virus.
For them, the Covid-19 pandemic is an illusion created by people of power to gain control and power.
According to the Royal Society Open Science (Vol.7, No.10, 2020), people who are more susceptible to misinformation were less likely to report complying with public health recommendations and less likely to say they’d get vaccinated.
This then would lead to a bigger issue such as the inability to contain the virus from spreading and preventing the number of cases from decreasing daily.
An article by Groundview listed 10 types of misinformation (and disinformation) that people should be aware of.
- False connection – When headlines, visuals, or captions don’t support the content.
- False context – When genuine content is shared with false contextual information
- Manipulated content – When genuine information or imagery is manipulated to deceive
- Satire or parody – No intention to cause harm but has potential to fool
- Misleading content – Misleading use of information to frame an issue or individual
- Imposter content – When genuine sources are impersonated
- Fabricated content – Content that is 100 per cent false, designed to deceived and do harm
- Propaganda – When content is used to manage attitudes, values and knowledge
- Sponsored content – Advertising or PR that is disguised as editorial content
- Error – When established news organisations makes mistake while reporting
(Source: https://groundviews.org/2018/05/12/infographic-10-types-of-mis-and-disinformation/)
As misinformation has become widespread online, some organization has even launched initiatives to tackle the issue such as the Google News Initiative.
In 2018, Google launched the Google News Initiative a journalism-focused program that will help publishers earn revenue and combat fake news.
Under this initiative, publications are offered another monetization model online called ‘Subscribe with Google’, and also chance to work with established universities and groups to combat misinformation.
An open-source tool called ‘Outline’ is also introduced to make it easier for news organizations to set up secure access to the internet for their journalists.
While this may be a good initiative to help journalism thrive in the digital age, the society on the other hand, can also do their part to control misleading information from spreading.
Here, the people are always encouraged to double check information they received or to refer to trusted source of information on information regarding the pandemic (such as the Sarawak Disaster Management Committee Facebook page) prevent spreading false information.
