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https://phys.org/news/2022-05-disinformation-flourished-pandemic.html
A small team of researchers at Sony Computer Science Laboratories in France has explored why disinformation seemed to flourish during the global pandemic.
One of the more remarkable features of the global pandemic is the seemingly unceasing stream of misinformation attributed not just to the virus and the people who were being infected, but in the ways the medical community has responded to the threat. From ridiculous claims regarding supposed cures to the baseless claims made by anti-vaxxers, misinformation has flourished. In this new effort, the researchers wondered why this has been happening and they looked at the sources of news, both reliable and unreliable, as participants in a supply and demand news ecosystem.
[...] The researchers were not able to ascertain why the unreliable news sources were able to respond more quickly, but suggest that the end result was higher visibility for unreliable sources, leading to widespread disinformation gaining traction, and ultimately, acceptance.
[Journal Reference]: Pietro Gravino et al, The supply and demand of news during COVID-19 and assessment of questionable sources production, Nature Human Behaviour (2022)
DOI: DOI: 10.1038/s41562-022-01353-3
Do you agree with this assessment?
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Entropy on Saturday May 28 2022, @08:51PM (7 children)
With the false statement that we didn't need medical grade masks in order to not get sick. They knew this was false, but said it anyway to avoid a supply disruption in the masks. So they began by lying to us, and then they are surprised we don't believe them?
No matter what excuse they are using to polarize or cause fear in us this week/month/year I hope that most people can see that the government can't really be trusted. They think nothing of lying to the general public, and have done so for decades. It's cute they are crying because we don't believe them now.
(Score: 2) by kazzie on Saturday May 28 2022, @09:06PM (4 children)
This was also rationalised in the early days as "lay people won't know how to fit a mask properly, so let's not bother asking them to", though this bit wasn't typically in the headline report. (I was happy to jump on that reasoning as an excuse not to wear one at the time, but later joined the cloth mask brigade.)
When fabric masks became commonplace (and later mandatory in some places), the number of people who'd wear one over their mouth but leave their nose exposed seemed to support that argument.
(Score: 2) by Entropy on Saturday May 28 2022, @09:18PM (3 children)
It's just one of many examples that show the government(CDC included) think absolutely nothing of lying to the public. There's a long, long list of course that is just one that happened right at the beginning of the pandemic.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday May 29 2022, @01:50AM (2 children)
Too true. However that doesn't mean everything they say is a lie and that doesn't make any other news source more trustworthy. I think that's where most people go wrong. X lied to me and Y confirmed the lie so forever afterwards anything X says is always false and everything Y says is always true to me.
(Score: 2) by Entropy on Wednesday June 01 2022, @04:13PM (1 child)
That's how life works--If someone in your life lies to you then you stop trusting them. They are by definition a liar. If your romantic partner lies to you all the time, what do you think the fate of that relationship is? if your friends know your romantic partner lies to you all the time yet you get burned for trusting them(yet again) what would they say of your decision?
Trust is a basic tenant of relationships, and society--once broken it can't be easily repaired. I'm genuinely sad we can't trust the government but it's quite easy to demonstrate that we can't. It's a sign of just how corrupt they are that they can't even see why.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday June 03 2022, @06:45AM
Sorry about your wife. She is good in bed, though.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday May 28 2022, @09:23PM (1 child)
Persistent misinformation, or perhaps just libertarian misunderstanding:
False statement, never made? Masks were intended to slow the spread of the virus, but not by keeping you safe from the virus, but rather to keep you from spreading the virus to others. This is very common misunderstanding by the not too bright, as well as thinking that there is a mandate, and that people were incarcerated and/or shot for refusing to think of others.
So, is it disinformation when the thing that makes it not information is your own failure to comprehend? Runaway? Anyone?
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday May 28 2022, @10:01PM
True and that is most of the problem, but the CDC did say some stuff about masks not helping when they needed to keep people from panic buying the n95s that medical professionals direly needed. Certainly not worth worrying about except as a historical note they should remember for next time. Sadly conservatives care more about identity politics so they will play up the mistakes of the CDC to avoid the fact that the president at the time was a criminal that actively made the pandemic worse for political points and all too real theft and sale of PPE. It boggles the mind these rubes still defend the bigliest loser.