Fear, panic and fake news spread after Ebola outbreak in Uganda
Fear and panic about Ebola has been around for years. During the 2014 epidemic, hoaxes included claims that an infected woman had been found in Atlanta, and that Ebola was a bioweapon. The false stories spread across the internet, helped along by Donald Trump, far-right outlets like Breitbart News, pseudoscience platforms like Natural News, and last but not least, the Kremlin’s notorious “Internet Research Agency” troll farm. “There were so many lessons to take away from this. But looking at the Ebola discourse today, it seems we didn’t learn from any of them,” tweeted Caroline Orr Bueno, a behavioral scientist who specializes in Ebola narratives.
Two districts in Uganda have introduced their first Ebola lockdown while the country waits for vaccines. The World Health Organization has said the disease is “rapidly evolving” in the country, with 64 recorded cases and 24 recorded deaths. The online conversation about the disease is mimicking the fake news of the past. On Twitter, the most popular posts about the disease are made by influencers, not scientists or doctors. And the disinformation is dangerous: in Uganda, a vicious rumor is spreading that people who seek treatment for Ebola in hospitals could have their organs harvested.
“People cannot steal your organs like that,” Uganda’s Health Minister Dr. Jane Ruth Aceng tried to reassure a crowd in Uganda this week. There’s also been a carbon copy of the “Ebola in Atlanta” hoax story of 2014 — spawned by Russia — except this time, Ebola is supposedly in Chicago. Rumors flew on social media that two cases were discovered in the windy city. “This is FALSE. We don’t have any Ebola cases here,” Chicago epidemiologist Katrine Wallace tweeted, explaining how the press release that sparked the rumors came from back in 2014, when all this began.
IN GLOBAL NEWS
If you’re a young Russian man ripe for conscription, one of the most effective ways out of it is to forge medical papers saying you have HIV or hepatitis. A cottage industry has sprung up on Telegram to help Russian men avoid mobilization — pay $620 for an HIV diagnosis, or $820 for a hepatitis certificate, which would involve being added to the national database of those with the diseases. The report by Rest of World didn’t specify why the HIV diagnosis was cheaper — but it could be because of the long-running stigma and misinformation about HIV-positive people that accompanies a diagnosis in Russia.