WE ARE FIGHTING AN INFODEMIC!
"We are not just fighting an epidemic we are fighting an infodemic ", Director General of World Health Organization Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus.
Policymakers across the world are reacting to the COVID-19 pandemic. Fake news has been a cause of frustration amid the mountain of associated problems. Many now refer to this epidemic of fake news as a 'disinfodemic'. Propaganda and misinformation was disseminated through false news providers.
This has increased panic amongst the public and slowed the progress of the fight against the new coronavirus pandemic.
The ‘disinfodemic’ has resulted in misinformed behaviours such as drinking alcohol and applying heat to kill the virus. Some people were led to believe that the virus only affects white people, that testing kits are contaminated, and that vaccines are being tested on Africans while the truth is that a vaccine has not yet been discovered in Africa. Other fake news purveyors purported that shaving makes face masks more effective, made up riots, and made fake claims with falsified video evidence about Nigerians burning Chinese-owned shops in response to cases of harassment of Africans in China.
If we don’t read the news we are uniformed if we read it we are misinformed, we should all ask ourselves what is the long term effect of too much information? One of the effects is the need to be first, not even to be true. Hence we all have a responsibility to tell the truth not just to be first, we live in a society where it’s ‘just first’, who cares? We don’t care who it hurts, who it destroys, we don’t care if it’s true just say it, sell it!
