Between January and June, First Draft collected 9,722 fact checks about the coronavirus outbreak to find out what we could learn about misinformation. Here’s what we found (thread) firstdraftnews.org/latest/the-fir…
On January 15, @rapplerdotcom debunked a social media claim that a case of SARS had been reported in Mandaluyong City, outside Manila. The article would be the first of many fact checks relating to the new coronavirus in 2020 according to our research rappler.com/newsbreak/fact…
Remember those viral WhatsApp messages that claimed you could kill the virus by gargling salt water? Fact checks about home remedies, self-diagnostics, effects and signs of the disease peaked in March, when the least was known about the virus
Fact checks about the origins of the virus, as well as conspiracy theories, featured relatively heavily at the beginning of the outbreak.
As First Draft’s US Director @cward1e said: “It’s easy to dismiss conspiracies, but we have to understand why they’re taking hold. There isn’t a good origin story for the virus, and so this information vacuum is allowing misinformation to circulate.”
‘Community spread’ (false claims and baseless accusations that certain communities were spreading the virus) received the most fact checks. Old videos and images taken out of context were used as false evidence of gatherings or other behaviors that could lead to community spread.
This analysis was based on research about ‘data deficits’ (situations where there are high levels of demand for information about a topic, but credible information is in low supply). During a pandemic, these deficits can have serious consequences.
2/12 Our Australia team continues its work at @UTSEngage, monitoring social media and conducting research on how to counter online mis- and dis-information. They will be an official partner of the @IFL_Brown
3/12 First Draft began in 2015 as a small nonprofit coalition that sprung out of a need: to understand, verify, and provide guidance on the misinformation we all were seeing on the social web. Over the following six years, we built out teams in London, New York, and Sydney.
A large amount of mis- and disinformation has circulated on social media in multiple languages over the past few days regarding #Ukraine. Trustworthy information is as important as ever in times of crisis, so here are our top tips and tools 👇
First and foremost, be wary of the difference between MISinformation and DISinformation. While they can seem interchangeable, the difference lies in the intent. Precise language is important e.g. propaganda can fall under the umbrella of disinformation
Second, visual misinformation gains a lot of attention. We’ve seen time and time again old photos and videos recirculated during times of crisis, which can cause more chaos and confusion. Preventing this can be as easy as running a reverse image search
1/ First Draft’s latest piece looks at anti-Muslim content spread on YouTube and TV news in India
2/ First Draft examined 70 headlines from stories about the Tablighi Jamaat run by some of India’s most-watched news channels, as well as a number of news outlets over the past year
3/ Of those headlines, we found that 27 used anti-Muslim language, while four made misleading, false or out-of-context claims
1/ How are climate change conspiracy theories and misinformation spreading cross-platforms and escalating over-time?
2/ First Draft’s @carlottadotto analyzed climate change-related conversations over the past year on the fringe platforms 4chan and 8kun. YouTube was the most popular domain used to support climate change denialism, followed by Bitchute, web archive links, and Wikipedia.
3/ The rampant use of YouTube links on 4chan and 8kun emphasizes how misinformation on the platform is being pushed to networks in other online spaces.
In the wake of recent vaccine announcements, reporters and policymakers need to be tracking “data deficits” — situations where demand for information about a topic is high, but the supply of credible information is low. We outline two of them below. 🧵👇firstdraftnews.org/long-form-arti…
1. mRNA technology, DNA alteration and foreign propaganda narratives. mRNA vaccines’ novelty and technical complexity complicates efforts to provide accessible and compelling information on this technology, while the incentive for bad actors to exploit this gap is high.
2. Measures of vaccine “effectiveness,” trial stages’ “interim” results and other limitations of the vaccine announcements. Information detailing these limitations are often missing from reporting, which could erode public confidence in Covid-19 vaccines.
Today the UK became the first Western country to approve a Covid-19 vaccine. Following this and other recent vaccine trial and approval announcements, here are five misinformation narratives reporters should be aware of when covering these stories. 🧵👇 firstdraftnews.org/latest/vaccine…
1. A Covid-19 vaccine is unnecessary; the immune system is superior. This narrative is now comparing Covid-19 survival rates to the efficacy rates of the current vaccines to suggest that our immune systems are more capable than vaccines in protecting us from Covid-19.
The narrative that hydroxychloroquine’s effectiveness eliminates the need for a Covid-19 vaccine, highly popular among many Francophone communities in Europe and Africa, has been applied to recent vaccine trial announcements.