'Fake facts' and the coronavirus

Social media has completely changed the world over the last two decades or so by connecting much of the globe in ways not even thought of before and enabling real time transfer of information. It has also completely revolutionised the way we communicate, work, spend, invest, and even plan. But it's a double-edged sword at best because of its propensity to perpetuate falsehood, its lack of fact-checking, and eventually its ability to seriously hurt people, communities and even countries. Indeed, just as much as it is the driving force of the age of technology, it is also the world's biggest platform for propaganda and manipulation. Social media itself calls such information 'fake news' or 'fake facts'. And it's no surprise that the downside can become quite a serious issue in unprecedented times like the present, when a mysterious pandemic threatens to wipe out the world's population unless checked rather quickly.

This trend of misinformation has snowballed to such an extent since the onset of the coronavirus pandemic that a number of international commentators have started referring to it as 'disinfodemic'. Suddenly the 'information highway' is full of ingenious recipes that will supposedly kill the virus in its tracks. From ingesting different types of oils to lying in the sun to reciting various verses from different scriptures, it is possible to find different kinds of fake treatments and remedies depending upon one's likes and dislikes. And it's not as if all this has not caused serious concerns among the saner quarters of the international community. The United Nations has been pretty upset about such trends for quite a while, seeing how a few influential yet irresponsible tweets can unleash humanitarian disasters including wars, famines, and all sorts of things that can cause large-scale human suffering as well as waste of precious resources. And as fears grow that fake news in the time of the coronavirus can put a large number of lives at risk for no reason whatsoever, prompting people with even the slightest signs to 'self-treat' based on unproven remedies found online, UNESCO (United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation) has been mandated with countering all falsehoods and promoting accurate facts and figures about the virus.

It turns out that UNESCO has been sounding the alarm for some time about the effect technological and social transformation has had on the way people now exchange information. And once again it is seriously warning about the 'contamination' caused by misinformation campaigns, which pose a serious threat to fact-based policy, especially during the current Covid-19 crisis. Now conspiracy theories dominate almost all commentary about the crisis, from its origin to what might cure it. The trouble is that such falsehoods can quickly negate facts, especially in places like the subcontinent with large rural and uneducated populations.

And this particular crisis is made far worse because certain governments and even heads of state are contributing to the avalanche of false narratives. Nobody can forget how US President Donald Trump wondered if injecting bleach and disinfectants or exposing patents' bodies to ultraviolet light could help treat the virus. And even though he later rubbished all concern by attributing the remark to a failed attempt at sarcasm, it did cause a lot of panic with people calling helplines for guidance and doctors having to advise against any such practices very seriously. It ought to concern world leaders that misinformation dominates the landscape just as most of them are relaxing their lockdowns and reopening their economies.