Effect, Perpetrators and Fight against fake news

during COVID-19 crisis

Rachit Tibrewal
CS16B022

Introduction
In this paper, we discuss the many fake news and misinformation regarding COVID-19
spreading in the world. We find all the sources of this fake news and also try to
understand the motivation behind spreading it. The channels of the spread of fake news
are analyzed and how these channels have a wider reach than previous times. We also
analyze how fake news has affected people and even degraded the response to the
crisis. Finally, we discuss the measures being taken to debunk this fake news which
itself has become another contagious disease.

What is fake news?

It is not merely false information conveyed by reportage. As the word 'fake' suggests,
fake news requires intentional deception; honest reporting errors are not fake news.
Fake news involves a particular type of deception. It is more than mere lying. The 'news'
part of 'fake news' implies that the deception is intended for an audience larger than the
immediate recipient. Fake news is meant to be shared again and again. [1]

The illusory truth effect [2] is the tendency to believe false information to be correct after
repeated exposure. When the truth is assessed, people rely on whether the information
is in line with their understanding or if it feels familiar. In a 2015 study, researchers
discovered that familiarity can overpower rationality and that repetitively hearing that a
certain fact is wrong can affect the hearer's beliefs ​[4]​.

Fake news regarding COVID-19

There has been a lot of fake news circulating. The fake news itself can be categorised
along various dimensions like religion, cure, prevention, patients, coronavirus being a
hoax, fake donation campaigns, government declarations, pseudoscience, conspiracy
theories. In India, there has been a lot of fake news concerning how Muslims have been
spreading coronavirus by licking utensils or videos showing how Muslims were being
taken away and injected with the virus. These videos aim to attack the religious
sentiments of people and create a divide between communities.

Many people fell prey to an "early April Fool" prank wherein a document was circulated
on social media, disguising itself as a government announcement about an extension of
lockdown beyond the 21 days. The Indian army also had to debunk fake news about an
impending emergency declaration in April. Then there are various ​Homeopathic a ​ nd
Ayurvedic ​cures circulating. There was even a false statement by Union Ayush Minister
Shripad Naik saying that Prince Charles of Britain had been cured by an ayurvedic
practitioner. There have been a range of cures suggested from antimalarial drugs, the
use of sesame oil in the nose, Tulsi, ginger, Guduchi, turmeric to drinking ​gomutra.
Snorting cocaine, drinking alcohol and bleach are some of the other fake cures being
circulated.

From the start of this crisis, there have been conspiracy theories about COVID-19 being
a hoax and the government's attempt to undermine citizen's freedom. There are a lot of
conspiracy theories circulating regarding the involvement of China in the spread of this
virus and how this virus was made inside a lab. Some people are using this as an
opportunity to deceive people into making a financial gain. A lot of fake donation
campaigns are running which aim to scam people into donating their money for help
COVID-19 afflicted.

Pseudoscience is also rampant trying to find scientific reason in certain actions when
there is none. A prime example is ​"Coronavirus does not survive in hot
temperatures, as per research by Nasa. If 130 candles are lit together, the
temperature will increase by 9 degrees as per an IIT professor. So, coronavirus
will die at 9.09 pm on Sunday. Masterstroke by Modi"​.​ ​One can notice the use of
prestigious organizations such as NASA and IIT to justify claims which are
downright made up. The WHO has clarified that from the evidence so far,
COVID-19 can be transmitted in all areas, including areas with hot and humid
weather. Some people are using astrology to find the relevance of numbers and
dates, and sharing their findings with their acquaintances.
Channels for the spread of fake news
The television media channels have also engaged in spreading incorrect news
without fact-checking. In Telangana, a news reporter was booked for telecasting
fake news about the owner of a mutton stall getting infected with Coronavirus
which caused panic among the customers and citizens.

Social media like Whatsapp, Facebook, TikTok have become major channels for
the spread of fake news. The spread of fake news on these platforms is
perpetrated by not only people who generate such fake news but also by people
who forward such news. Through the easy and no cost forward feature of this
platform, fake news can reach huge masses in a matter of a few hours. Such
fake news stories are usually sent by people who are trusted by the receiver to
some extent. It is natural to believe what trusted friends tell you.

COVID-19 is being described as the first major pandemic of the social media
age. WHO calls this phenomenon an ​infodemic​. Social media bots which are
automated programs are also involved in spreading fear and fake news.

Perpetrators of fake news

The epistemology of testimony has received significant attention from philosophers in
recent decades (e.g., ​Coady 1992​; ​Lackey 2008​; ​Goldberg 2010​). A person counts as
believing a proposition based on testimony when she believes it ​because​ the
proposition was presented to her by another person. This is typically an epistemically
virtuous practice, as we rely upon others for our knowledge of many things distant from
us in space or time. A community of people with a practice of accepting one another’s
testimony will be able to learn far more than individuals who insist upon believing only
what they discover on their own.

The media channels are sources of some of the fake news. Many small media channels
start making claims without facts backing them up. Other people who are doing this for
financial gain. The fake news posts made on social media are often linked with
advertisements that will open up when someone clicks the post. This helps them get
ad-revenue. Others engage in more direct means by running fake donation campaigns.
Xenophobia and religious hate spreading posts are started by people who want to take
advantage of the crisis to instigate people against one another. The common people
who are not the source of the news are also instrumental in the spread. If the news
turns out to be false, when confronted, they will have a simple excuse that they did not
create it, they just forwarded it. While it happens to be true, they will claim the credit.

There is proof that certain counties are spreading disinformation for strategic gains.
China is accused of spreading propaganda of its successful containment of COVID-19
and blaming the US for the virus [7]. There can be truth to its success in containment
(but should again be taken with a pinch of salt due to state-run media), but blaming
another country for the virus when all evidence conclusively points towards the virus
having originated in Wuhan's wet markets is just propaganda.

Effects of fake news

“Fake news spreads faster and more easily than this virus, and is just as dangerous.”
- T.A. Ghebreyesus, WHO director

People who have recently returned from abroad or even have some connection abroad
are being targeted by fake news. Samir was one of the deaths in Kolkata due to
coronavirus. People started vilifying his son and daughter-in-law who lived in the US.
The problem here was that his son had not met him in the last six months. In the ​Taat
Patti Bakhal​ area of Indore, two women doctors were injured when a team of health
officials was pelted with stones while they were trying to trace a person who had come
into contact with a COVID-19 patient earlier. This was due to fake Whatsapp videos
claiming that healthy Muslims were being taken away and injected with the virus. This is
only of the many examples of fake news that has affected the safety of health workers.

Religious disharmony has been a rising effect of coronavirus. Ranging from how
Muslims are immune to coronavirus to how some communities are trying to spread the
virus deliberately. Videos falsely claiming to show members of the missionary group
spitting on police and others quickly went viral on social media.

There have been deaths due to fake cures circulating on the internet. A man died after
ingesting a product meant to clean fish tanks, as it contains chloroquine, a drug
currently being tested (inconclusively so far) as a treatment for COVID-19. Fake cures
can make people feel safe from the virus and cause them to disobey the actual
guidelines like social distancing, hand washing, wearing masks, etc.
Fight against fake news
The Indian government has written to top social media companies including Facebook,
YouTube, TikTok, ShareChat, and Twitter, to control the spread of misinformation.
International organizations like WHO have formed a team of "MythBusters" who are
working with social media companies to weed out misinformation. However, some
scammers are disguising themselves as WHO to steal money or sensitive information.

WhatsApp is to impose a strict new limit on message forwarding as the chat app seeks
to slow the dissemination of fake news. Facebook has already banned advertisements
and listings selling face masks. It has also banned ads intended to create panic or
implying certain products can cure the virus. Google has been removing videos from its
YouTube platform and has set up a 24-hour response team to fight misinformation.

However, this has not been enough. The anti-fake-news strategies sound reasonable
but have failed to solve the problem effectively. For example, Facebook has been
putting a warning on certain posts that they might be fake news. This can have a
counter-effect, people will believe that posts without such warnings are fact-checked but
in reality, they might just have been missed by the checking system.

One of the ways fake news can be curbed is by making people accountable. The Indian
government should work with social media companies to identify perpetrators of fake
news and penalize them. During this medical crisis, any news concerning the virus
should not be allowed to circulate. Only official government messages regarding the
epidemic should be allowed to be shared. One of the reasons for sharing such
messages is that many people feel they have nothing to lose. Many countries are
moving in this direction by having legislative policies where accountability is placed on
technology companies as well as individuals [5].

Another method would be to regularly host myths debunking sessions on popular media
channels. This has been carried out to some extent. However, sometimes people fail to
understand or completely listen to the information being displayed, they mistakenly
understand rumors to be truths. So care should be taken during such programs to not
sensationalize or twist news.

Many governments are also funding research on using technology such as artificial
intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) to counter fake news. But this may result in
unexpected scenarios. First, removing fake news may give rise to the ​"Streisand effect",​
whereby deleting content increases the audience's attention on it. [5]

Spread of fake news during COVID-19 compared with those

during SARS and H1N1
The SARS epidemic was also a strain of coronavirus. It also had some of the same
problems we are facing during the COVID-19 crisis. Early in the epidemic, people
turned to folk medicine when official medicine had not been discovered. H1N1 is
different in this regard as a vaccine was made available in a relatively short time, even
before the disease was declared a pandemic. However, this did not stop people from
creating conspiracy theories about the role of H1N1 in getting the world rid of
overpopulation. Such conspiracy theories have also emerged in regards to COVID-19.
Some communities have been calling COVID-19, "the China virus" or "the Wuhan
virus", H1N1 was also called Mexican flu, thus showing xenophobia to be prevalent
during both crises.

One contrast to earlier epidemics would be the penetration of social networks in

developing countries like India. The availability of cheaper data has brought many
people online. For India, fake news spread during COVID-19 has been unprecedented
compared to that during the previous epidemics.

Recognizing that these patterns exist, and are relatively easy to isolate, is a boon for
health care workers everywhere who are forced to deal with the negative effects of such
narratives. Understanding that any new disease outbreak is going to result in conspiracy
theories, xenophobic gossip, etiological arguments, and so forth, and that these will
appear in a finite number of permutations, allows health workers the opportunity to
better prepare themselves for the onslaught.

Conclusion
The fake news is similar to the coronavirus in many ways. It is highly contagious,
spreads through the air and can jump various channels (social media, spoken
communication, television media). It has spread fear among the masses. It continues to
hamper the steps being undertaken to combat the actual virus. It is causing the virus to
have side-effects which are not only medical. This shows how ethical and proper
communication plays a vital role even during a medical crisis. Governments and
international organizations should take learnings from the current infodemic crisis and
create robust mechanisms to curtail the spread of fake news. Educating people about
critical thinking and responsible communication can help eradicate the problem at the
grassroots level.

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