“Info-demic” – how the tech sector is responding to COVID-19 fake news and information overload

Normally, you search for something on Google or social media and a barrage of adverts appear on your screen or in pop ups. The algorithms are incredibly canny, showing results for items and websites you have previously viewed or shared through WhatsApp messages, to really target your purse strings.

But now, type in “Coronavirus” to your search bar and the screen you see something different. Gone are the adverts, links to previously viewed websites and recommendations for products.

This is one of the tech industry’s responses to the Covid-19 “info-demic”. There have been significant interventions from companies like Google, Facebook, Twitter and Instagram to signpost users to official government websites, official health advice and trusted mainstream media outlets to try and curb the spread of fake-news and misinformation.

Facebook have created an “Information Centre” which includes official medical advice and factual, often government-backed news. On Pinterest, the only pictures and infographics you’ll find relating to Covid-19 are those by internationally recognised health organisations, like the WHO. Whatsapp has limited message forwarding after the platform was criticised for allowing several audio files containing false information on the virus to spread through its platform. Twitter now has a policy to remove information that conflicts with official public health advice.

But is this all a little too late? Social media has built its empire and popularity through engagement, click-bait and posts which go viral. These posts, more often than not, do not reflect reality or speak any truth but tend to be those which gain the most engagement.

Despite the above measures, research by Oxford’s Reuters Institute looked at the spread of 225 misleading or false claims about Covid-19. They found that 88% of these claims appeared on social media platforms. This is compared with just 8% that appeared in mainstream news outlets and 9% on television. According to a survey conducted by Pew Research Centre; almost 30% of adults in the US believe that Covid-19 is a man-made virus created in a laboratory. The spread of the conspiracy theory linking Covid-19 to 5G has had significant consequences, such as harassment against tele-engineers and even petrol bomb attacks on telephone poles in the US.

Perhaps removing, limiting and censoring completely is an impossible task for the tech industry. Deleting misinformation is possible from the platforms but once something has been viewed, it cannot be deleted from our minds. Despite of this, these efforts to minimise the spread of misinformation are better than nothing. It will be interesting to see how these companies respond once the pandemic is over. We know their capabilities now to filter our feeds, will these be used to tackle other fake news in the future? Fake news used in political campaigns or the spread of terrorism online are two areas in which social media companies have come under fire in the past for not doing more to police throughout their platforms.

Covid-19 has seemed to turn the tide on fake-news censorship which companies have previously resisted before. Let’s hope this is continued for the better.