NPR: Twitter, Facebook Remove Trump Post Over False Claim About Children And COVID-19 . “Twitter temporarily blocked the Trump election campaign account from tweeting until it removed a post with a video clip from a Fox News interview from Wednesday morning, in which the president urged schools to reopen, falsely claiming that children are ‘almost immune from this disease.’ Facebook also removed a post containing the same video from Trump’s personal page. Both Facebook and Twitter said the post violated their rules on COVID-19 misinformation.”
health misinformation
Media Matters: YouTube terminates anti-vaccine figure Del Bigtree’s account after he pushed dangerous coronavirus and vaccine misinformation
Media Matters: YouTube terminates anti-vaccine figure Del Bigtree’s account after he pushed dangerous coronavirus and vaccine misinformation. “Following Media Matters’ reporting, YouTube terminated the account for anti-vaccine figure Del Bigtree’s online show The HighWire, where he had repeatedly encouraged viewers to intentionally contract COVID-19 and pushed other dangerous medical misinformation. In a statement to Media Matters, a spokesperson for YouTube confirmed his account was pulled for violating the platform’s policies. Bigtree’s show is also broadcast on Facebook, where it remains available for streaming.”
NBC News: Dark money and PAC’s coordinated ‘reopen’ push are behind doctors’ viral hydroxychloroquine video
NBC News: Dark money and PAC’s coordinated ‘reopen’ push are behind doctors’ viral hydroxychloroquine video. “A dozen doctors delivered speeches in front of the U.S. Capitol on Monday to a small crowd, claiming without evidence that the coronavirus could be cured and that widely accepted efforts to slow its spread were unnecessary and dangerous. It was the latest video to go viral from apparent experts, quietly backed by dark money political organizations, evangelizing treatments for or opinions about the coronavirus that most doctors, public health officials and epidemiologists have roundly decried as dangerous misinformation.”
Phys .org: COVID-19: Social media users more likely to believe false information
Phys .org: COVID-19: Social media users more likely to believe false information. “A new study led by researchers at McGill University finds that people who get their news from social media are more likely to have misperceptions about COVID-19. Those that consume more traditional news media have fewer misperceptions and are more likely to follow public health recommendations like social distancing.”
NPR: Distrust Hurts U.S. Efforts To Stop Coronavirus, Former Obama Health Official Says
NPR: Distrust Hurts U.S. Efforts To Stop Coronavirus, Former Obama Health Official Says. “Why are coronavirus cases so much higher here in the United States than other countries? For Andy Slavitt, former acting administrator of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services under President Obama, the fundamental issue at play isn’t simply a slow turnaround for virus test results or mask mandates. He blames a widespread erosion of fundamental trust at all levels of society.”
Washington Post: Sinclair TV stations delay airing interview with ‘Plandemic’ researcher amid backlash
Washington Post: Sinclair TV stations delay airing interview with ‘Plandemic’ researcher amid backlash. “After facing intense scrutiny for planning to air a baseless conspiracy theory that infectious-disease expert Anthony S. Fauci helped to create the coronavirus, conservative TV broadcaster Sinclair Broadcast Group announced Saturday that it will delay the segment to edit the context of the claims. Sinclair, which has 191 stations across the country, received backlash this week after ‘America This Week’ host Eric Bolling interviewed Judy Mikovits, a former medical researcher featured in the debunked “Plandemic” conspiracy online film.”
CNN: Social media giants remove viral video with false coronavirus claims that Trump retweeted
CNN: Social media giants remove viral video with false coronavirus claims that Trump retweeted. “A video featuring a group of doctors making false and dubious claims related to the coronavirus was removed by Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube after going viral online Monday. The video, published by the right-wing media outlet Breitbart News, featured a group of people wearing white lab coats calling themselves “America’s Frontline Doctors” staging a press conference in front of the US Supreme Court in Washington, DC.”
Media Matters: Laura Ingraham is Fox News’ biggest COVID-19 misinformer. The network is promoting her show as a reliable source for data analysis.
Media Matters: Laura Ingraham is Fox News’ biggest COVID-19 misinformer. The network is promoting her show as a reliable source for data analysis.. “A new study from Media Matters shows that Laura Ingraham is currently Fox News’ biggest coronavirus misinformer, based on analysis of the network’s programming between July 6 and July 10. Her show The Ingraham Angle was responsible for a quarter of all COVID-19 misinformation, spreading unreliable claims 63 times, over the course of five days.”
Mother Jones: Teaching People How to Spot Bad Science Is a Public Health Tool
Mother Jones: Teaching People How to Spot Bad Science Is a Public Health Tool. “Before the pandemic, Laurel Bristow was an infectious disease researcher studying respiratory pathogens at Emory University’s Vaccine Center. In March, her lab paused its work because of the pandemic. Within days, Bristow began posting Instagram videos from her cheerful kitchen explaining the science behind the coronavirus headlines. She struck a nerve: Her account quickly grew from a few hundred to 99,000 followers. It’s not hard to see why she’s popular—Bristow deftly unpacks complex scientific concepts.”
New York Times: An Ex-Times Reporter. An Ohio Wedding Provider. Covid Contrarians Go Viral.
New York Times: An Ex-Times Reporter. An Ohio Wedding Provider. Covid Contrarians Go Viral.. ” If you’ve been following Gov. Mike DeWine’s coronavirus news conferences the way that New Yorkers follow Andrew Cuomo’s, you know Jack Windsor: He’s the reporter asking about creeping Marxism among contact tracers and suggesting that Ohio is double counting virus cases. Mr. Windsor, a 44-year-old with credentials from a small Mansfield TV station, is a new kind of media star, the local face of Covid contrarianism.”
Content Moderation Case Study: Dealing With Misinformation During A Pandemic (2020) (Techdirt)
Techdirt: Content Moderation Case Study: Dealing With Misinformation During A Pandemic (2020). “In early 2020, with the world trying to figure out how to deal with the COVID-19 pandemic, one of the big questions faced by internet platforms was how to combat mis- or disinformation regarding the pandemic. This was especially complex, given that everyone — including global health experts were trying to figure out what was accurate themselves, and as more information has come in, the understanding of the disease, how it spread, how to treat it, the level of risk, and much, much, has kept changing. Given the fact that no one fully understood what was going on, plenty of people rushed in to try to fill the void with information. Most social media firms put in place policies to try to limit or take down misinformation or disinformation using a variety of policies and tactics. But determining what is misinformation as opposed to legitimate truth-seeking can be very tricky in the midst of a pandemic.”
Poynter: Fact-checkers take a look back at their work fighting COVID-19
Poynter: Fact-checkers take a look back at their work fighting COVID-19. “In Europe, fact-checking organizations Maldita.es, Full Fact, Pagella Politica/Facta, Correctiv, and Agence France-Presse collaborated to study the themes and spread of misinformation across the continent. The report found similar types of misinformation correlated with the virus’s progress through each European country. For example, a hoax about chemical spraying helicopters started in Italy during its initial outbreak and spread across the continent as the virus progressed. More surprising, said Maldita.es co-founder Clara Jimenez, were the viral hoaxes that did not spread outside each country’s borders.”
NiemanLab: Biased algorithms on platforms like YouTube hurt people looking for information on health
NiemanLab: Biased algorithms on platforms like YouTube hurt people looking for information on health. “Several public health agencies, such as state health departments, have invested resources in YouTube as a channel for health communication. Patients with chronic health conditions especially rely on social media, including YouTube videos, to learn more about how to manage their conditions. But video recommendations on such sites could exacerbate preexisting disparities in health.”
Coronavirus tests: Swabs don’t damage the brain and other claims fact-checked (BBC)
BBC: Coronavirus tests: Swabs don’t damage the brain and other claims fact-checked. “Claims that coronavirus tests can harm people are circulating on social media. We investigated the claims in some of the most widely shared posts.”
AFP Fact Check: False social media posts purport to share coronavirus guidelines from Sri Lankan hospital
AFP Fact Check: False social media posts purport to share coronavirus guidelines from Sri Lankan hospital. “An image has been shared repeatedly on Facebook and WhatsApp alongside a claim it shows a list of COVID-19 preventive measures issued by Sri Lanka’s Infectious Diseases Hospital (IDH). The claim is false; the hospital said it did not issue the purported recommendations; Sri Lankan health officials urged the public to ‘strictly adhere’ to approved COVID-19 guidelines; the purported recommendations in the misleading posts have previously been debunked by health experts.”
