The Infodemic: Oxford study details global Covid-19 effect on big tech; Erdogan vs. infection-rate info; India’s new misdirection
Welcome! We're tracking the global spread of coronavirus disinformation, and what is being done to combat it. Here are three big disinformation trends we spotted this week:
Coronavirus is forcing tech giants to rethink their attitude towards disinformation in ways that no political crises had.
Two prominent examples include YouTube's decision to take down all videos linking 5G to Covid-19. And Facebook announced that Whatsapp will impose new strict limits to slow the dissemination of fake news. At the end of March, Twitter set the new tone by taking down two tweets by Brazil’s President Bolsonaro that were critical of quarantine measures (the only other world leader this has happened to so far is Venezuela’s Nicolás Maduro).
But there is still a long way to go as Consumer Reports’ Kaveh Waddell found out when he loaded up several Facebook ads with hoaxes. His ads told people to “stay healthy with small daily doses of bleach” and promoted the idea that “social distancing doesn’t make any difference.” Facebook approved all seven of them. Here’s Wadell’s great Twitter thread with links to his piece. In case you were wondering, no, he didn’t post the ads.