Going Viral: The infodemic
By Anna McAlpine and H. Christian Breede
In February, long before the WHO described COVID-19 as a pandemic, the organization used the word infodemic — an overabundance of information — to describe how the crisis was playing out online; this descriptor remains accurate. As the curve begins to flatten, provincial governments are slowly providing businesses and individuals with more liberty. The problem with leaving decisions in the hands of Canadians is that no amount of physical distancing can tackle an infodemic and the twin diseases of disinformation and misinformation will continue to infect the information Canadians have available as they make decisions. As our leaders begin draft strategies for loosening regulation and reopening our economy, it is crucial that disinformation and misinformation be dealt with so that Canadians can make the best decisions possible as we create our new normal. While frequently used interchangeably, disinformation and misinformation are indeed different terms. While disinformation is the deliberate creation and propagation of false, fraudulent, or otherwise fake content, misinformation is the unknowing propagation of disinformation by others. Disinformation can come from actors like the Internet Research Agency in Saint Petersburg. It can easily end up on Facebook, be shared by unknowingly by your friends, and became misinformation.
Both disinformation and misinformation are a credible threat to Canadians. While, unlike Americans, we are not facing a decisive federal election in the middle of this pandemic, we are nonetheless vulnerable to this infodemic and the political discord that it sows. Experts have traced disinformation campaigns that suggest COVID-19 was created by the US military or that it is caused by 5G to the same Russian bots used during the 2016 election. On May 7th, two individuals were arrested in Saint-Adèle, Quebec for setting fire to cell towers — attacks suspected to be in response to conspiracy theories. Their decision to act and the vocalization of their reasons is misinformation. As Stephanie Carvin, a professor at Carleton University and a former CSIS analyst described it, any conspiracy theory, particularly those that suggest COVID-19 is a bio-weapon on the loose, strongly undermine trust in public institutions, which is exactly what Russian disinformation campaigns are trying to accomplish.
The unique nature of disinformation and its mutation into misinformation in our current situation is that it not only comes from the traditional culprits; social media sites or the US President and his allies, but is now extremely widespread. The evolving nature of the COVID-19 crisis and the lack of definitive knowledge available on the virus has created a breeding ground for speculation and guesswork that puts people at risk. Put simply, misinformation, regardless of the origins, is dangerous. Organizations and world leaders are faced with the challenge of sharing premature research and information with the public or not speaking ‘soon enough’ and subsequently coming under fire, as we have seen in the case of the World Health Organization. The slow spread of information about the virus at the beginning of 2020 and the failure of world leaders to respond expediently has stoked a culture of distrust in public institutions that was present well before the pandemic hit. Trust is a natural inoculant to disinformation and without it, the mutation of disinformation into misinformation accelerates the spread of bad ideas.
In short, the COVID-19 crisis has created a unique combination of factors that have, and will continue to, breed dangerous action, based on dubious information. A number of Liberal and NDP members of parliament have expressed concerns about disinformation and misinformation during the pandemic, though it is unclear what legislation to address the issue might look like in a Canadian context.
The UK provides a template for this type of legislation; since 2018, the UK government have had a Rapid Response Unit (RRU) in place to address this challenge. This Cabinet Unit functions based on a model they call FACT, which stands for Find, Assess, Create, and Target. The unit is consistently monitoring the internet for false information and assessing the information to determine if it is a credible threat; if it has reached enough of an audience or is damaging enough to address. As part of the create and target steps, the RRU creates digital content to counteract disinformation and ensures that they are highly visible, using digital targeting strategies. As of March 2020, the unit was dealing with up to ten incidents each day and we can assume that this number has grown alongside the number of infections. The UK government has also relaunched their digital literacy campaign, “Don’t Feed the Beast”, which encourages citizens to think twice about what digital content they share and engage with. The campaign promotes the “SHARE checklist” which gives people tools to evaluate digital content for accuracy. While it may be hard to stop the creation of disinformation, measures such as these can help curtail the mutation to misinformation.
So, what do we do on this side of the pond? It is difficult to imagine that the federal government could successfully establish a new unit similar to the one in the UK efficiently enough to combat COVID-19 misinformation this summer. Notably, in the federal election this past fall, the threat of both disinformation and misinformation seemed to be entirely absent from party platforms and public debate. Nonetheless, it is now clearer than ever that misinformation legislation should be an important policy consideration for the duration of this pandemic and beyond.
All of us must dedicate some time and effort to protect ourselves as best we can against disinformation in order not to become carriers of misinformation. That means using a lot of common sense and tapping into non-governmental resources like Infotagion, a website that factchecks popular claims about the coronavirus against WHO and other publicly available public health information. The organization has the backing of Canadian MPs Charlie Angus and Nathan Erksine-Smith. We should be suspicious of viral click-bait news stories that do not have clear authoritative sources, and even when the sources appear authoritative, we should always compare multiple unique sources. We also have to accept uncertainty. What we know about this virus is evolving rapidly and there is no definitive truth and often legitimate differences across the spectrum of public health experts. The highly polarized US media environment is also a particularly risky place to seek truth. Be wary of interpretations of scientific insights and data offered by opinion writers who are using the information free-for-all to score political points or simply attract attention; they are not epidemiologists nor are they statisticians.
It appears that at least for the time being, information assessment is in the hand of the Canadian consumer. The best thing that we as citizens can do is accept how little we know and resist the urge to search for answers to quell our anxiety. These are unnerving times and it is easy to feel that frantic googling or Facebook scrolling might offer us an answer. Such online activity will only increase your anxiety. Put your phone down and go for a walk instead.
Anna is a fourth-year undergraduate student at Queen’s University, majoring in Global Development Studies with a minor in Political Studies. She is also a Research Assistant at the CIDP Gender Lab.
H. Christian Breede is an associate professor of political science at the Royal Military College of Canada and Deputy Director of the CIDP at Queen’s University.
