One way of dealing with the problem was to make sure people got good, accurate information not from conspiracy theorists or twisted government propaganda but from reliable public health authorities. And that\u2019s what Facebook did; official health information on stopping the spread of coronavirus now appears at the top of every Facebook news feed<\/a>, worldwide. Twitter, too, took unprecedented steps, providing alternative sources of information alongside factually incorrect tweets from U.S. President Trump and Chinese Foreign Ministry Spokesperson Lijian Zhao.<\/p>\n\n\n\n How effective has this effort been? A study in April 2020 from the Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism (working with the Oxford Internet Institute and the Oxford Martin School)<\/a>, found that, while the number of fact checks of English-language online content soared 900% in January-March 2020, 59% of the posts rated as \u201cfalse\u201d by independent checkers could still be found online at the end of the period; YouTube and Facebook did somewhat better; only 27% and 26%, respectively, of posts rated \u201cfalse\u201d remained up. The study also found that disinformation from official government sources had an unusually large impact; state-backed media \u2013 including government-run \u201cnews\u201d outlets in China, Iran, Russia and Turkey \u2013 produce relatively little content but have massive \u201cengagement\u201d with English-speaking audiences around the world \u2013 roughly 10 times more than the BBC.<\/a> The Reuters Institute calculates that official disinformation constitutes only about 20% of the disinformation circulating online, but it gets more than two-thirds of all social-media engagement. <\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n The Reuters Institute summarises the themes and between-the-lines\nmessages emerging from these government-backed campaigns: 1) criticism of\ndemocratic governments as corrupt and incompetent, 2) praise for their own\ncountry\u2019s global leadership in medical research and aid distribution, and 3)\npromotion of conspiracy theories about the origins of coronavirus.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Perhaps the best illustration of how \u2013 and why \u2013 this phenomenon is so\nhard to regulate on platforms that insist on remaining open is the case of Plandemic<\/em>, a 26-minute film produced\nwith the input of a discredited anti-vaccination campaigner. The film \u2013 which\nalleges that a shadowy cabal of global elites are profiting from the spread of\ncoronavirus and the coming effort to vaccinate against it \u2013 has been removed\nfrom all mainstream social-media platforms after being fact-checked as false\nand misleading. But not before it was viewed eight million times, shared 2.5\nmillion times in a three-day window and spread well beyond the Facebook,\nYouTube, Twitter and Instagram sites where it was initially uploaded (QAnon, a\n25,000 member group that pushes rightwing conspiracy theories, played a crucial\nrole in its early spread). A New York Times\ninvestigation<\/a> shows how the audience started small, but, relying on a re-post from a\npopular television \u201cdoctor\u201d (with 500,000 Facebook followers) and a\nmixed-martial arts fighter (with 70,000 Facebook followers), it went viral and\nsoon broke into the mainstream U.S. political debate. The debunked film\neventually made its way to the website of Reopen Alabama, a 36,000-member group\npushing for the U.S. state to end the lockdown despite health guidelines. In\nthe end, the momentum that digital technology gives conspiracy-driven\ncommunities like the ones behind Plandemic<\/em>\ncould be slowed but proved difficult to stop. <\/p>\n\n\n\n The more important news may not be that truth filters don\u2019t always work or that the system can still be gamed. Much more significant is the new approach emerging over disinformation; as of 12 May, more than 50 million pieces of misleading health-related content had been flagged and given warning labels on Facebook alone; simultaneously, Facebook reported more than 350 million click throughs to correct and accurate information<\/a> on the pandemic\u2019s spread and the safety measures expected of the population. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Regulators and platforms showed that \u2013 in a public emergency \u2013 they can\nwork together to get reliable information out to people. And some platforms\nalso showed that, when it comes to public health, they are not prepared to let\npolitical leaders abuse their platform to spread disinformation \u2013 even when it\nmeans facing the full wrath of those leaders for calling \u201cmalarkey\u201d over their\nlies. These are important precedents, going forward. A new atmosphere has been\ncreated, a new spirit of public-private collaboration for more socially\nresponsible outcomes and \u2013 perhaps most importantly \u2013 a re-dedication to\nscience and evidence within the bellies of the platforms where so much social\ninteraction now takes place. It\u2019s up to us all to demand only the best of our\ncompanies and public institutions, to consolidate these gains and to make sure\nthe Internet remains a tool for spreading democracy \u2013 and not for destroying\nit.<\/p>\n\n\n\n PAUL HOFHEINZ Few issues have brought the challenge of Internet regulation to the fore more than the recent COVID-19 crisis. The global pandemic and ensuing lockdown offered a near-perfect petri dish for testing the commitment of platforms to the spread of correct, accurate health information under the most trying, jarring circumstances \u2013 and for making sure that … <\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/evidencehub.net\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/06\/Screen-Shot-2020-06-04-at-11.05.59-AM.png\")
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Paul Hofheinz is president and co-founder of the Lisbon Council.<\/p>\n\n\n\n