As news organizations have continued to lay off, furlough or cut the pay of their employees during the COVID-19 pandemic (28,000 and counting, The New York Times reported last week), fundraisers and other supportive efforts are emerging to assist affected journalists and newsrooms. For example, Microloans for Journalists, a program created by journalists, connects journalists in the United States who need financial assistance with other U.S. journalists who are willing to lend them $500, interest-free. The Philadelphia COVID-19 Community Information Fund is providing more than $2.5 million in grants to several local news organizations to support their coverage of the pandemic.

On April 7, the News Media Alliance, a trade association for news publishers, noted that the Department of Homeland Security’s Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency had refined its language about “essential” businesses to include “publishing news.” The next day, 19 Senate Democrats sent a letter (PDF) to the chamber’s Republican and Democratic leaders and the chairman and the vice chairman of the Senate Appropriations Committee, requesting that any additional COVID-19 stimulus package include financial support for local news outlets, which have been hit particularly hard in this crisis, even as their work becomes more important.

Discuss news outlets’ roles

What role do news outlets play during a public health crisis? What are some of the ways that you can support local journalism in your community? Are you seeking out more local news coverage now than you were before the pandemic? What are some differences between national news coverage of the pandemic and the news provided by your local outlets?

Track COVID-19 news coverage

Ask students to track local news coverage of the pandemic and select what they believe is the most valuable piece of coronavirus-related local news. Then have students share their selections in small groups and agree on one story to share with the entire class. Finally, have the class vote on the best local story about the pandemic, then email or message the journalist to see if they would be willing to join the class for a short video conference about their reporting.

Related reading

• “As newsrooms face coronavirus-related cuts, 54% of Americans rate media’s response to the outbreak positively” (John Gramlich, Pew Research Center).
• “Amid Pandemic, News Attention Spikes; Media Favorability Flat” (Zacc Ritter, Gallup).
• “Critical in a public health crisis, COVID-19 has hit local newsrooms hard” (Clara Hendrickson, The Brookings Institution).
• “Removing paywalls on coronavirus coverage is noble. It also makes no sense.” (Howard Saltz, Poynter).

Join the News Literacy Project and the University of Rhode Island’s Metcalf Institute for a four-part webinar series, COVID-19 in Context: News Coverage, News Literacy & Scientific Uncertainty. The series will explore one of the most urgent science communication challenges of our lives through the insights of journalists, news literacy education experts and scientists.

Beginning April 23, we will discuss the experiences of journalists who are covering this evolving pandemic and the challenges of cutting through misinformation — while providing you with the tips and tools to do so, too. We’ll close the series with a discussion about the specific communication challenges posed by all the uncertainties around COVID-19 and how to look for reliable sources to help clarify the unknowns.

You can participate in one or more of the webinars and submit your questions to panelists in the latter part of each session.

The webinars are free; registration is required.

We hope you will join us.

Webinar 1: News Coverage in a Pandemic

View webinar recording

April 23, 1 p.m. EDT
COVID-19 represents an unusual challenge for the press. Journalists from small and large outlets and beat and general assignment reporters, they all must cover a rapidly changing story that integrates science, public health, economics, policy, and politics. As newsrooms struggle with understaffing and a lack of experienced science reporters, how are they managing this challenge? In this webinar, speakers will share an overview of COVID-19 news coverage and describe their experiences reporting on this crisis.

Speakers:

• Amy Mitchell, director, journalism research, Pew Research Center
• Apoorva Mandavilli, freelance science journalist contributing to the New York Times
• Jill Jackson, news director, KUOW radio
• Erica Hensley, Investigative Reporter, Mississippi Today

Webinar 2: 10 Critical News Literacy Skills

View webinar recording

News literacy presentation

April 28, 1 p.m. EDT
Being able to tell fact from fiction is critical right now. The coronavirus pandemic has necessitated rapid dissemination of information from many sources, including government officials, the news media and social media. How can you be sure you are getting accurate information? This webinar will identify 10 critical news literacy skills to help you be a smart, active consumer of news and other information.

Speaker: John Silva, director of education, News Literacy Project

Webinar 3: Digital Forensics — How to Fact Check Like a Pro

View webinar recording

Digital forensics presentation

April 30, 1 p.m. EDT
Building on the 10 critical news literacy skills of the previous webinar, this presentation will introduce participants to some of the tactics that purveyors of misinformation commonly employ, then demonstrate how to use a variety of free online tools to debunk false content like a pro. Participants will learn how to use critical observation skills, reverse image search engines, lateral reading strategies, web archivers and basic geolocation tools to determine the authenticity, original context and source of viral content.

Speaker: Peter Adams, senior vice president of education, News Literacy Project

Webinar 4: Countering Misinformation in a Crisis: Making Sense of Science during COVID-19

View webinar recording

Suzannah Gonzales’ presentation

May 5, 1 p.m. EDT
Because COVID-19 is so new, scientists and medical professionals are still working to answer many basic questions about its spread and treatment. Even as the research advances every day, the scientific uncertainties and unclear communication make it easy to spread misinformation.  Information about COVID-19 is spreading so quickly that some have described this as an “infodemic.” Webinar speakers will discuss how to understand these uncertainties and actively counter misinformation.

Speakers:

• Suzannah Gonzales, associate director of education, News Literacy Project
• Brandon Ogbunu, assistant professor, Brown University
• Leysia Palen, professor of computer science and professor and founding chair of the Department of Information Science, University of Colorado

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About the Metcalf Institute

The University of Rhode Island’s Metcalf Institute provides education, training and resources for journalists, researchers, and other science communicators to engage diverse audiences in conversations about science and the environment. Metcalf Institute was established at the University of Rhode Island in 1997 with funding from three media foundations: the Belo Corporation, the Providence Journal Charitable Foundation and the Philip L. Graham Fund, with additional support from the Telaka Foundation.

This piece is part of a series, presented by our partner SAS, that explores the role of data in understanding the COVID-19 pandemic. SAS is a pioneer in the data management and analytics field. (Check out other posts in the series on our Get Smart About COVID-19 Misinformation page.)

Case fatality rate vs. mortality rate

COVID-19-related data and information can be hard to interpret if you’re not an expert. We have learned a lot of new terms in the last few weeks. One of the terms we see most often is case fatality rate, or CFR. This is an important metric because it helps us understand how many of those with a confirmed diagnosis of COVID-19 die as a result of the disease. However, like the comparisons mentioned previously in this series, this number must be considered in context.

First, it’s important to differentiate case fatality rate from other metrics, such as mortality rate, or even a person’s risk of dying if they were to become infected. Case fatality rate is represented as a ratio.

Unfortunately, it is hard to measure both of these numbers with total accuracy. The number of people currently diagnosed with COVID-19 is not equal to the number of people that actually have it. And it’s possible we may never get an accurate assessment of that number. The current case fatality rate is likely elevated compared to the actual risk of dying if you were to catch the disease. That is because the people most likely to get tested are those with the worst symptoms, making them more likely to experience life-threatening complications.

Consider other factors

Underlying factors such as age and pre-existing health conditions make your individual risk different from the overall risk. And while certain reports of case fatality rates include some of those demographics as well, remember that those numbers have the same context-based biases as the overall case fatality rates.

Finally, a metric we are seeing less often, but still merits attention, is the overall mortality rate. This refers to the portion of the population that dies as a result of the pandemic. This number is typically very different from the case fatality rate because not everyone is exposed to the disease. Imagine a country with just 100 people in it. If 20 of those people got infected, and 1 of them died, the case fatality rate — the proportion of those infected who died — would be 5%. However, the mortality rate is only 1%. That is, 1% of the total population passed away.*

The takeaway here is to carefully look at the percentages you’re seeing reported and make sure you understand what population it applies to. Is it an entire population? Only those infected? Only those with severe symptoms? These are all important questions to ask yourself when interpreting the information.

Conclusion

There is a common perception that numbers and data are facts, but it is wrong to assume that they are a completely accurate picture of the world. The data we have are the best measurements available at the moment. The only way we could know for sure how the number of cases changes daily is if we could test every single person every day. This simply isn’t feasible, so instead we must rely on our imperfect measurements. This makes understanding the pandemic and its progression more challenging; but data analysis is still a powerful tool to give us insight and help us make decisions.

*The original version of this blog post included incorrect figures in the section discussing mortality rate vs. case fatality rate. They were corrected on April 14, 2020, the date of publication. We apologize for the error.

Other articles in this series:

• • Examining data behind racial disparities.
  • Comparing data across countries.
  • Comparing data across time.
  • Age isn’t everything.

About SAS: Through innovative analytics software and services, SAS helps customers around the world transform data into intelligence.

Suzannah Gonzales, NLP’s associate director of education, discusses misinformation and what each of us can do to avoid falling for it and to help others avoid it as a guest April 13 episode of the We Don’t Talk About That podcast with Lucas Land.

“One thing I’m suggesting to people is, think like a journalist during this time of misinformation. Consider all pieces of information. Check it out, as we say,” Gonzales tells listeners.

The COVID-19 pandemic has underscored a new reality that now permeates our lives: misinformation is a threat not just to the public life of our country, but to our public health as well.

For weeks, the internet has been awash in what the World Health Organization is calling an “infodemic” (PDF): “an over-abundance of information — some accurate and some not — that makes it hard for people to find trustworthy sources and reliable guidance when they need it.” A lot of it is bogus — for example, “advice” about ways to protect yourself from the coronavirus has included taking warm baths, drinking water to wash the virus into your stomach, eating bananas and inhaling hot air from a hair dryer. None of these work.

Moreover, those who have downplayed the risks have undermined efforts to create the physical distancing that public health experts say is essential to avoid further spread of the virus — thereby jeopardizing the lives of many people.

Taking responsibility

While we can’t control what our friends post on social media, what appears in search results or what pops up in the texts we receive, we can decide what to do with it. We can push back by taking responsibility for checking sources, looking for evidence-based information and calling out false and misleading content when we encounter it. Doing so is now literally a matter of life and death.

We need a new ethos for what we read, watch and listen to, and for what we trust, share and act on. When it comes to “information hygiene” (a term popularized several years ago by Mike Caulfield of Washington State University Vancouver), it’s not enough to simply take care of ourselves right now; we have to help take care of others and “flatten the curve” of the rampant spread of false information. If we truly value our health and the health of our communities, we must accept that we have a personal responsibility to both educate ourselves about fabricated and misleading content and become more mindful about combating its dissemination.

We can affirm our role in countering the damage misinformation might do — and lessen the impact of both deliberate purveyors of false content and people who think they are helping friends and family by sharing what they think is legitimate medical advice — by following these simple steps:

Keep an eye on your emotions

If what you read, watch or hear triggers a strong visceral reaction such as fear, outrage or hope, take a moment to assess whether you’re being manipulated.

Don’t “like” or share something that is not clearly sourced

It might seem obvious, but you’ll be wise to take a few minutes to evaluate the credibility of the post, tweet, image or video to ensure that you’re not endorsing or spreading something that’s not true.

Learn to spot patterns in misinformation

For instance, breaking news events usually result in a spate of unverified information on social media. By now, this pattern — a major event followed by widespread misinformation as journalists scramble to confirm the facts — is predictable. It compels us to slow down and follow a story over time and through a variety of sources before sharing and acting on initial reports.

Be wary of deepfakes or “cheapfakes”

If a video appears to show someone in authority saying something outrageous, check to see if trustworthy news sites have confirmed its authenticity. Doing so will help you avoid falling for something that’s not true.

Be skeptical, not cynical

It’s tempting to believe that you’re powerless, and that nothing you see online is credible. But such thinking plays into the hands of people who want to make us doubt the very notion of truth. Facts are verifiable, and knowing that we are able to check them should empower us in the fight against misinformation.

It’s a sad truth that in what should be a golden age of information, we have to be vigilant about fabricated news, deceitful videos and phony websites. These days, anyone can be a producer of false or misleading information, shared with the click of a key or a tap on a touchscreen — and everyone must be an editor — and a fact-checker. As we pull together as a nation (while keeping six feet away from each other), our health depends on it.

In the article “Misinformation Is a Matter of Life and Death” published on Medium on April 9, NLP CEO and founder Alan C. Miller notes the true danger in misinformation about the coronavirus: “The COVID-19 pandemic has underscored a new reality that now permeates our lives: misinformation is a threat not just to the public life of our country, but to our public health as well.”

This piece is part of a series, presented by our partner SAS, that explores the role of data in understanding the COVID-19 pandemic. SAS is a pioneer in the data management and analytics field. (Check out other posts in the series on our Get Smart About COVID-19 Misinformation page.)

In addition to comparisons of COVID-19 data across countries, other information that can keep us glued to our seats is seeing how the number of cases and deaths are changing over time. While these insights can help us draw some conclusions, it’s important to consider the numbers critically. Because this disease and our responses to it are changing daily, so are the factors that go into each number.

For example, consider the two graphs in this Business Insider article, showing the case fatality rate by country.

It’s interesting to see that just a few weeks ago, the U.S. had the worst case fatality rate of any country. Was that because we were woefully unprepared? Or was it because our medical system was failing? Or was it because of the lack of tests we had available at the time?

The final factor is likely a big part of the answer. We can infer this because the fatality rate appears to have declined significantly since that time. We’re either getting better at treating COVID-19, or we are improving our detection of less severe cases through increased testing. An increase in testing results in a rise in the number of cases reported, thus lowering the case fatality rate. Either way, the fundamental sources driving the data are changing over time.

You can see a very clear example of this when you look at almost any graph of cases in China (including the one below). Most show a significant jump in cases on or around Feb. 12, when China made a decision to reclassify thousands of people as positive for COVID-19 without confirming those cases through diagnostic testing. This additional context is critical in being able to accurately interpret the data.

By Phoenix7777 – Own work
Data source: Coronavirus disease (COVID-2019) situation reports, World Health Organization (WHO), CC BY-SA 4.0, Link

Unfortunately, most of the changes in underlying factors don’t have such a clear demarcation. In many countries, testing has slowly ramped up, making it possible to detect more cases over time but difficult to determine if an increase in cases is due to wider testing or simply the spread of the disease.

Similarly, changes to policy — in various degrees and with various impacts — have rolled out in many countries. This includes differences in social isolation requirements or whether people with mild symptoms should be tested. Each decision impacts the data we see, so we can’t interpret the resulting changes in cases or deaths over time as concrete evidence of how the disease spreads. It also makes it challenging to predict what will happen in the future.

Other articles in this series:

• • Examining data behind racial disparities.
  • Comparing data across countries.
  • Case fatality rate vs. mortality rate vs. risk of dying.
  • Age isn’t everything.

About SAS: Through innovative analytics software and services, SAS helps customers around the world transform data into intelligence.

The Philadelphia Public School Notebook, an independent, nonprofit news service serving supporters of the Philadelphia public schools, put the News Literacy Project at the top of its list of  “Online learning resources you may have missed.”

The article, published April 3, notes that Checkology is free for U.S. educators and parents affected by COVID-19 related school closures. It also describes components of the e-learning platform.

A baseless conspiracy theory about the COVID-19 pandemic migrated from fringe internet communities into more mainstream conversations last week, spreading dangerous doubt about the seriousness of the pandemic across the United States and around the world.

The theory — that the pandemic is a staged hoax or “false flag” event — had emerged among anti-vaccination and QAnon communities online by mid-March. But the idea was galvanized on social media following a powerful March 25 New York Times report featuring video of Colleen Smith, an emergency room doctor at Elmhurst Hospital in Queens. She provided a firsthand account and video of conditions at the hospital the day before, when 13 people died of COVID-19.

Three days later, Twitter user @22CenturyAssets tweeted: “#filmyourhospital Can this become a thing?” Hours later, the far-right talk radio host Todd Starnes tweeted (archived here) a video of “not much happening” at the Brooklyn Hospital Center — his neighborhood  hospital. He said he did so to highlight “what’s really going on out here instead of what the mainstream media is telling you.”

COVID-19 conspiracy spreads

By the following day, more than a dozen photos and videos said to have been shot outside hospitals across the U.S. and around the world had been tweeted with the #FilmYourHospital hashtag. In posts on April 1 and 2, influential QAnon adherents attempted to discredit Smith on Twitter and YouTube. They falsely claimed that she did not actually work at Elmhurst Hospital, They also misinterpreted her background in medical simulation training, and picked apart the video she provided to the Times.

Also fanning the flames of the #FilmYourHospital conspiracy movement was CBS News’ March 30 acknowledgment that it had erroneously used several seconds of footage of a crowded hospital in Italy in a March 25 report (go to 0:45 for the clip) about the impact of COVID-19 on hospitals in New York City. CBS News has offered no further explanation about its mistake.

Safety and privacy issues

Safety and patient privacy concerns largely prevent the press from providing the public with photos and videos from inside hospitals, where the realities of the pandemic are most apparent. That may help explain why this has become such a focal point of conspiracy communities online.

Also note that another widespread conspiracy theory falsely connecting 5G cell towers to the COVID-19 pandemic spiked online last week. It led to a spate of viral rumors — including a variety of false claims that governments are faking the public health crisis to distract the public and push through dangerous new technologies.

Related:

• “What We Pretend to Know About the Coronavirus Could Kill Us” (Charlie Warzel, The New York Times).
• “British 5G towers are being set on fire because of coronavirus conspiracy theories” (Tom Warren, The Verge).
• “YouTube moves to limit spread of false coronavirus 5G theory” (Alex Hern, The Guardian).
• “The latest wildly false COVID-19 conspiracy theory puts the blame on 5G” (Ruth Reader, Fast Company).
• “Here’s why 5G and coronavirus are not connected” (Bob O’Donnell, USA Today).

Discuss: Why are people drawn to conspiracy theories? In what ways could these conspiracy theories about COVID-19 be dangerous? What can we learn from the way the false notion that the pandemic is a hoax went mainstream with the #FilmYourHospital hashtag? How can we work to stop such theories from spreading? Can people be inoculated against conspiratorial thinking? How?

This is the first of a series, presented by our partner SAS, that explores the role of data in understanding the COVID-19 pandemic. SAS is a pioneer in the data management and analytics field. (Check out other posts in the series on our Get Smart About COVID-19 Misinformation page.)

The COVID-19 pandemic has plunged us into a global public health crisis that has experts looking back 100 years for comparison: The 1918 Spanish flu pandemic. However, a lot of things have changed since then. While our medical systems are significantly more robust, we are also more connected globally, which allows disease to spread rapidly in new ways. Something else is spreading rapidly as well and marks another huge shift since 1918 – data.

Data is incredibly powerful. It gives us insight into the world around us and can help us quantify what’s happening so we can better understand a situation and make well-informed decisions. In recent years, as number-crunching technology has advanced, data has influenced almost every aspect of our lives: from the activity trackers we wear on our wrists to how social media platforms track our habits online. These developments have helped us verify — or refute — hunches, assumptions and generalizations about important issues based on quantifiable information.

Critical role during pandemic

This is especially critical now as leaders make unprecedented decisions with potentially life and death consequences as we wait, wondering what comes next. At the same time, most of us are not experts at interpreting public health data that describes different components of the crisis — presented through graphs, charts and statistics updated multiple times a day. How can we make the most sense of this data? How can we decide what to believe, what to dismiss and what might be causing unnecessary fear?

At SAS, we work with data every day. While we can’t answer health questions about the pandemic, we can help identify trends we see in COVID-19 data being presented, and point out possible concerns with how it could be interpreted. In this series we will look at three main areas where we ought to pay particularly careful attention: comparing data across countries; comparing data across time; and case fatality rate vs. mortality rate vs. risk of dying. Let’s begin:

Comparing COVID-19 data across countries

As residents of the United States, one piece of information that we might be interested in is how the disease is progressing in other countries, particularly those where infections first occurred and where leaders have implemented similar social distancing recommendations or community restrictions. We can use information from those nations to predict how the disease will progress here, how quickly that will happen, and when we might see light at the end of the tunnel.

But there are some big flaws with looking at these as direct comparisons. While it’s helpful to try to learn lessons from other nations, we must remember that the data doesn’t tell the whole story of what is happening. For example, Italy has the highest case fatality rate of any nation. (The U.S. Centers for Disease Control define case fatality rate as “the proportion of persons with a particular condition (cases) who die from that condition. It is a measure of the severity of the condition.”)

Differing factors

In the case of Italy, we must ask if this is because of the higher proportion of elderly adults in the population? Is it because of an overwhelmed hospital system? Is it a sign that fewer people with mild symptoms are requesting or receiving testing? The answer is probably some combination of those elements.

Here are some factors to consider:

• Nations vary widely in the extent of diagnostic testing being conducted.
• The rate of and criteria for testing greatly impact rates of detection.
• Most testing can tell us only if a person is currently infected and not if that person had been infected and since recovered.

Those are just some of the factors that may contribute to the discrepancies we see in the chart below.

We see a wide variety in the extent of testing among nations, and therefore, the rate of positive tests. Countries with a high rate of positive test results compared to the number of tests conducted are likely requiring stricter testing criteria. Countries with a higher proportion of negative test results are likely instituting more widespread testing practices. As a consequence, they also might detect a higher percentage of actual cases.

One of the big issues in trying to make comparisons of COVID-19 data among nations is that it’s impossible to know, or control, all the factors that go into the numbers reported. When scientists create experiments to thoroughly understand a phenomenon, they carefully control the conditions and influences as much as possible. But the data surrounding the novel coronavirus isn’t coming from careful experiments; it’s coming from the real and messy world where we can’t control or even measure all the factors that go into different national responses or testing practices and where they are changing, with varying frequency.

Other articles in this series:

• • Examining data behind racial disparities.
  • Comparing data across time.
  • Case fatality rate vs. mortality rate vs. risk of dying.
  • Age isn’t everything.

About SAS: Through innovative analytics software and services, SAS helps customers around the world transform data into intelligence.

When a news event or a significant issue grabs hold of the public’s attention, it’s human nature for us to want to get our hands on as much information as we can as fast as we can.

It’s also human nature to act on an impulse to share that information with friends, family and the wider community in an effort to keep people safe from harm. Unfortunately, large breaking news events — especially those connected to controversial, frightening and complex subjects, like the current COVID-19 pandemic — tend to generate a spike in viral rumors.

These stories, anecdotes, ads and memes pass quickly from one person to the next, often with little regard to whether the content is true. Some elements may be accurate, but much is simply a form of digital rumor — half-truths, doctored videos and images, or complete fabrications.

They typically appeal to our emotions, provoking anger, fear, curiosity or hope and overriding our rational minds and critical-thinking skills. When we have an immediate strong response to a piece of content online, our impulse is to take action: to “like” it, to share it immediately, to express whatever we’re feeling about it. Because of that impulse, and because Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, YouTube and other platforms effortlessly connect us to thousands of people (many of whom we’ve never even met), this content spreads rapidly across social media — even from one platform to another.

So think of these rumors like an actual virus. Mike Baker, a New York Times reporter in Seattle, has been tweeting weekly about the exponential increase in confirmed COVID-19 cases in the United States. A “like,” share or retweet of false or unverified content on social media spreads the same way — and the numbers are considerably larger.

Who shares COVID-19 rumors?

Why would someone make up a story or share an unverified rumor? As Craig Silverman noted in Lies, Damn Lies and Viral Content, a 2016 report for Columbia University’s Tow Center for Digital Journalism, behavioral economist Cass Sunstein identified four main types of rumor propagators in his book On Rumors. Here is a quick explanation of what they are and how they apply to the information we see online:

• Those who promote self-interest at the expense of others (for example, people spreading scams and using falsehoods to build up large followings online).
• Those who promote the interests of a group they favor or support (for example, people in one political party who share false claims or misleading videos about a politician in the other party).
• Those motivated by malicious intent (for example, trolls who seek to derail conversations or extremists advancing agendas of hate online).
• Those who act for altruistic reasons (for example, people with a sincere desire to warn others about a possible threat).

In the case of the coronavirus pandemic, we see all of those motivations playing out in our social media feeds. And you might be surprised to discover the biggest misinformation vector in the current crisis: people acting on the altruistic impulse to help others avoid infection — and sharing misinformation without realizing that it’s false or misleading.

Seek credible sources

Whatever the intent, the best way to protect yourself and others from infection with misinformation about COVID-19 or the strain of coronavirus that causes it is to fact-check before you share. There are a number of resources and sites to help you do that. Here are a few:

• AFP Fact Check
• First Draft
• Lead Stories
• Snopes
• PolitiFact
• World Health Organization myth busters

You can stay ahead of the latest viral rumors — and learn how not to be fooled — by subscribing to our free weekly newsletter, The Sift^®; exploring the Get Smart About News section of our website; and downloading our free mobile app, Informable.

In the last week, both Twitter and Facebook have announced additional measures to combat the spread of misinformation about COVID-19 and SARS-CoV-2, the strain of coronavirus that causes the disease.

Twitter announced on March 18 that it would remove coronavirus-related content that goes “directly against guidance” from public health and government authorities, such as false and dangerous preventive measures or “cures” and claims that the virus is a hoax designed to harm the economy. Two days later, Twitter Support tweeted that it was working to “verify” the accounts of credible experts in public health. (One critic has urged the company to create a designation for this purpose other than its standard blue checkmark, which signifies only authenticity, not credibility.)

Facebook, WhatsApp

Also on March 18, Facebook, through its subsidiary WhatsApp, announced two initiatives to combat misinformation about COVID-19: a $1 million donation to the Poynter Institute’s International Fact-Checking Network (IFCN) and the launch of the WhatsApp Coronavirus Information Hub, where users can find credible health information. (The company also created a similar information center on Facebook.) In addition, WhatsApp is testing new features that enable users to search the internet for additional context about messages that are forwarded to them and is adding localized chatbots (including one run by the World Health Organization) to help guide people to credible information. The platform is also featuring the accounts of 18 IFCN members where users can forward messages for verification.

Joint statement

On March 16, Facebook, Twitter, Google, LinkedIn, Microsoft, Reddit and YouTube issued a joint statement expressing their commitment to “working closely together on COVID-19 response efforts.”

Facebook flagged a number of credible posts about the coronavirus as spam last week, but later explained that this was due to an error in an automated anti-spam system. The company also noted that it was working with a reduced content moderation staff because of COVID-19.

Related coverage

“Facebook has a coronavirus problem. It’s WhatsApp.” (Hadas Gold and Donie O’Sullivan, CNN Business).

“YouTube Is Letting Millions Of People Watch Videos Promoting Misinformation About The Coronavirus” (Joey D’Urso and Alex Wickham, BuzzFeed News).

 

The News Literacy Project makes Teen Vogue’s list of  “10 Ways to Fight For Social Justice During the Coronavirus Pandemic,” published on its website on March 30. NLP is included under No. 8 Combat Misinformation as a resource because, “There is so much information and misinformation about COVID-19 floating around online.”

 

John Silva, NLP’s director of education, advises the public to “act like a journalist” in the March 22 Associated Press article Virus outbreak means (mis)information overload: How to cope. Silva says anyone searching for accurate information about the virus needs to act a little like a journalist by verifying suspicious claims

Be wary of information from groups or news organizations you don’t know — in some cases the groups behind misinformation create websites and social media accounts that look like a legitimate news organization. Remember that there’s a difference between news stories and opinion pieces. News stories should include the source of the information. If there’s no source or attribution, be suspicious, Silva tells readers.

 

 

Peter Adams, NLP’s senior vice president of education, is quoted in the article “Health experts embrace social media to fight coronavirus,” published by The Hill March 21. “A lot of experts are speaking directly to the general public. It can be very valuable. The challenge for the public is knowing who is really telling the truth. Trolls and imposters are also active in that space,” Adams says.

 

 

 

 

The COVID-19 pandemic continues to spread and so has related misinformation. Much of the false and misleading content is being shared widely on social media. Peter Adams, NLP’s senior vice president of education, discusses the topic live on Univision News on March 20, noting the danger inherent to the spread of misinformation related to the virus and what each of us can do to stem the flow.

Peter Adams, NLP’s senior vice president of education, is featured in the March 19 USA Today article “Welcome to the first social media pandemic. Here are 8 ways you can stop the spread of coronavirus misinformation.”

Adams notes, “Really well-intentioned people are trying to make sense of this and help friends and family to the greatest degree possible so they just sort of share everything they see, and that turns into this overabundance of information, a lot of which isn’t true.”

 

Natalie Y. Moore’s March 19 column in the Chicago Sun-Times, “Fighting back against the fake claim of ‘fake news,’” closes with thoughts on “fake news” from Peter Adams, NLP’s senior vice president of education.

 

 

Ethan Shorey’s March 18 column,“During these times, trusted information so important,” in the northern Rhode Island newspaper, The Valley Breeze, a newspaper in northern Rhode Island, includes advice for navigating misinformation from Peter Adams, NLP’s senior vice president of education.

 

 

The parallels between the spread of the new strain of coronavirus and the spread of misinformation and confusion about it — between the actual pandemic and what the World Health Organization calls an “infodemic” — offer a number of important and urgent lessons in news and information literacy. Just as COVID-19 has thrown the weaknesses of our global health infrastructure into stark relief and dramatically raised the stakes of our personal choices and habits, the outbreak has underscored defects in our information infrastructure and is emphasizing the potential impact of our choices and habits online.

‘Information hygiene’

Much of the public health messaging in the last week has focused on the importance of practicing good hygiene  and on the need to “flatten the curve” by engaging in “social distancing.” (For example, the #WashYourHands hashtag that trended across social media platforms.) At the same time, we all need to focus on “information hygiene” and flattening the curve of dangerous falsehoods online by taking proactive steps to reduce their spread. Our decisions about which pieces of information to “like” and share can have a surprising impact on others.

For example, a false claim about ways to avoid the virus or cure COVID-19, however well-intentioned, may cause someone to downplay the seriousness of the outbreak or the recommendations of public health officials. Or something posted to social media as a joke might, after being “liked” and shared a number of times, be taken seriously and exacerbate public confusion and panic about the crisis. (Remember, “likes” are also known as “passive sharing,” because many platforms’ algorithms suggest things you “like” to your followers.)

As this crisis unfolds, more and more people will be asked to stay home, meaning that more and more people will be online more than ever before. They will be searching for answers and trying to make sense of the events around them. It is essential that we bring the same seriousness and sense of responsibility to our roles as creators and sharers of information as we do to our roles as conscientious stewards of public health.

For discussion with students

Discussing the COVID-19 pandemic with students is also an opportunity to explore the ways the crisis has ignited a familiar cast of known “bad actors” in the information ecosystem. Hucksters are peddling bogus supplements and miracle cures, some of which are dangerous. Disinformation agents and conspiracy theorists are pushing elaborate falsehoods. Trolls are sowing confusion. Extremists are promoting agendas of hate; and opportunists are using misinformation to generate social media engagement. Hackers are exploiting public fear and uncertainty to compromise accounts and install malware. And millions of ordinary people are inadvertently amplifying misinformation out of well-intentioned attempts to help their friends, family members and followers online.

Social media companies respond

Social media companies are struggling to combat COVID-19 misinformation — partially because many of their systems for policing misinformation were created to address coordinated campaigns, not a global viral misinformation outbreak from ordinary people. (This means monitoring misinformation in dozens of languages and national contexts). Still, they are also taking unprecedented steps in the right direction.

Related reading

• “Pinterest Is Blocking Coronavirus Searches, And People Are Very Happy About It” (Craig Silverman, BuzzFeed News).
• “The WHO and Red Cross rack up big numbers talking coronavirus on TikTok through vastly different strategies” (Harrison Mantas, Poynter).
• “5 quick ways we can all double-check coronavirus information online” (Laura Garcia, First Draft).
• “The truth about coronavirus is scary. The global war on truth is even scarier.” (Caroline Orr, Canada’s National Observer).
• “A Handy List of Reputable Coronavirus Information” (Melissa Ryan, Medium).

For further discusion

What responsibilities come with free speech? What kinds of speech shouldn’t be permitted in a free society? Should all social media platforms ban and remove medical misinformation? Why or why not? Should social media companies treat misinformation about climate change (an issue where there is scientific consensus) the same as they do misinformation about COVID-19? Why do you think crises and tragic events tend to spark conspiracy theories?

Additional resources

“Sifting Through the Coronavirus Pandemic,” an information literacy hub created by Mike Caulfield, a digital literacy expert at Washington State University. (Note: While we fully endorse Caulfield’s SIFT method, it is not affiliated with this newsletter.)

Also note: The News Literacy Project is working on a resource response for educators teaching news literacy during this outbreak. In the meantime, you can start by reinforcing these five tips with students:

1. Recognize the effects of your information decisions.
   Just as your decisions and actions can inadvertently spread the virus itself, your conduct online can influence others and have consequences in the real world.
2. Take 20 seconds to practice good information hygiene.

Like the time recommended for effective hand-washing, 20 seconds is all that is needed to eliminate a significant chunk of the misinformation we encounter: Scan comments for fact checks, do a quick search for the specific assertion, look for reliable sources and don’t spread any unsourced claims.

1. Filter your information sources.
   The World Health Organization cited the “over-abundance of information” (PDF) as a cause of the current “infodemic.” While a diverse and varied information diet is generally important, so is the ability to focus your attention on credible sources.
2. Learn to spot misinformation patterns.
   Rumors about this virus often cite second- and thirdhand connections to anonymous people in positions of authority, such as health or government officials. Don’t be fooled by “copy-and-paste” hearsay.
3. Help sanitize social media feeds.
   Flag misinformation when you see it on social media. Failing to do so leaves behind an infected post that will influence those who see it after you.

Peter Adams, NLP’s senior vice president of education, talked with NPR’s Michel Martin about misinformation surrounding the COVID-19 pandemic on the March 14 edition of All Things Considered.

He began by describing the types of misinformation being spread about SARS-CoV-2, the strain of coronavirus that causes COVID-19. “This pandemic has brought out a really clear picture of the kinds of things that tend to circulate in the misinformation ecosystem,” Adams said, but “more intensified and, obviously, with higher stakes.”

As an example, he added, he has seen “everything from miracle cures and alternative medicine recommendations — some of which are dangerous, most of which are completely ineffective — to anti-vaccination activists using this to push their agenda and their falsehoods,” along with “conspiracy theorists jumping in, some disinformation agents and online trolls.”

“The equivalent of taking 20 seconds and washing your hands is very much the same in the information space … investigate the source, do a quick Google search, stay skeptical.”

It’s not just bad actors, though. As typically happens when health or safety is at stake, he said, misinformation is often spread inadvertently by well-intentioned people trying to make sense of a scary and rapidly unfolding situation and want to protect their friends and family.

Adams also offered easy-to-adopt steps to distinguish credible information from false or misleading content. “The equivalent of taking 20 seconds and washing your hands is very much the same in the information space,” he said. If everyone can “take 20 seconds, investigate the source, do a quick Google search, stay skeptical, we can eliminate a great deal of the confusion and misinformation out there.”

Listen to the interview — or read the transcript — to help you and your family and friends stay well —and well-informed — during this outbreak.

Michel Martin of NPR interviewed NLP’s Senior Vice President of Education Peter Adams for the segment “Misinformation Around The Coronavirus” on the March 14 segment of All Things Considered Weekend Edition.

“The equivalent of taking 20 seconds and washing your hands is very much the same in the information space, where if you take 20 seconds, investigate the source, do a quick Google search, stay skeptical, we can eliminate a great deal of the confusion and misinformation out there,” Adams tells listeners.

Larry Magid’s March 13 Mercury News column, “Magid: Tools to help identify real vs. false online information,” includes information about Checkology and quotes from an interview with Alan C. Miller, NLP’s founder and CEO.

 

HundrED, a global education nonprofit, included NLP’s Checkology virtual classroom and NewsLitCamp as innovative resources in the March 12 article, “Proactive Measures In Education During The Coronavirus Pandemic.”

 

 

A March 11 article in The New York Times Learning Network section, “Coronavirus Resources: Teaching, Learning and Thinking Critically,” listed NLP as a resource “for staying on top of what’s true and what’s not — and for learning key news literacy skills useful not just in this context, but for thinking critically about any information you encounter.”

Peter Adams, NLP’s senior vice president of education, is featured in a video segment on the news website Newsy discussing misinformation circulating around the coronavirus outbreak. Adams explains how rumors that invoke fear, such as ones involving public health, can be strong drivers of misinformation.