- Position‹3 of 5›
- Coronavirus will impact our societies
Our information system is not fit for purpose, and a global emergency demonstrates this. Social Networks are optimised to spread the shocking and sensational at speed. The panic caused by a global pandemic will test the system to breaking point.
The argument
As coronavirus spreads, the accompanying panic brings with it fake news, as rumours spread and content creators see a chance to capitalise on uncertainty. Fear and the absence of settled information are precisely the conditions under which people search hardest for answers and scrutinise them least, which is why a health emergency is also reliably an information emergency. Many of the top YouTube videos on coronavirus, for instance, were demonstrated to carry within them hoaxes or significant misinformation — not obscure videos, but the ones the platform surfaced most prominently. That is not an accident of this particular crisis. The way that social media spreads news essentially incentivises misinformation and misbehaviour, because the systems that distribute it are optimised for engagement rather than accuracy. Regardless of whether they are true, the more sensational the story, the more likely it is that it will be shared and engaged with, and the more likely it is that someone, somewhere, makes money from it. A fabricated claim can be tailored to be maximally shareable in a way a careful and provisional one cannot, so the two do not compete on equal terms. Misinformation is woefully under-policed on the internet, and events like coronavirus highlight this, meaning that "unverified videos from Chinese social media are shared by local Twitter influencers, viral WhatsApp forwards warn users of government advisories that don't actually exist, and people share bogus cures for the virus." Each of those examples travels through a different channel, which is part of the problem: there is no single point at which such material could be intercepted, and the closed networks are the hardest of all to reach. The impact this ultimately has on the spread of coronavirus, and whether it leads to an overhaul of how we police fake news, remains to be seen — but the influx itself is already underway.
Premises
Counter-arguments
Surges of misinformation accompany every major crisis and long predate the pandemic and even social media, so framing an 'influx of fake news' as a distinctive coronavirus-driven change to society overstates its novelty. The same period also saw unprecedented platform action against COVID falsehoods, fact-checking labels, and a sharp rise in demand for authoritative public-health sources — so the net effect on the information environment is contested rather than a one-way flood. Misinformation is a standing feature of the online world, not a specific transformation the virus produced.
Rejecting the premises
[Rejecting P3] Poor policing of misinformation is a pre-existing condition of the internet, so the pandemic exposed it rather than causing a distinctive societal change. [Rejecting C] Heightened platform moderation and demand for reliable sources during the crisis make the societal effect ambiguous, not simply an 'influx' of fake news.