INL May 15, 2020 Digital Edition

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10 MAY 15, 2020 Businesslink Social media allows fake news travel faster, farther Ximena Smith Opinion: An open letter to the Prime Minister written by independent journalist Peter Drew, questioned the projected World Health Organisation (WHO) death figures and suggested that the New Zealand government’s response to the Covid-19 crisis was excessive and not based on evidence. Ironically, a number of the letter’s assertions were backed up by referencing less-than-reputable sources, such as Dailywire.com (which the fact-checking website Snopes says ‘has a tendency to share stories that are taken out of context or not verified’) or were based on Drew’s own interpretation of evidence. WHO claims and WHO didn’t For example, he accused the WHO of fraudulently exaggerating the Covid-19 death ratio by only considering the number of deaths in relation to cases that had tested positive and excluding the infected who had not been tested. However, the WHO have never claimed to know a definitive death ratio among all infected with the coronavirus. In March, they said about 3.4 percent of reported confirmed Covid-19 cases around the world had died, but that the death rate among all those infected will be lower and the true mortality rate of Covid-19 will take some time to fully understand. Wrong on Sweden Drew also held up Sweden as an example of where lockdown measures had not been implemented at all and was experiencing low death rates. This simply is not true - the New Zealanders trust mainstream news more than others (RNZ Picture) country has had a death toll of over 3000, a much higher figure than the combined toll of Scandinavian neighbours Denmark and Norway, which have both taken stricter lockdown measures and have recorded fewer than 1000 deaths between them. Nevertheless, the letter has been shared widely on social media by New Zealanders, with one instance of it being shared 20,000 times on Facebook alone. What can we make of the fact that the widespread sharing of this letter on social media occurred during the same week as the publication of research that found 53% of New Zealanders agreed they can trust news ‘most of the time?’ When I contacted Drew to ask him about why he thought the letter was spread so widely, he said that people were no longer confident that they were getting independent and unbiased information from the media, so instead were looking elsewhere to try to find alternative reliable sources of information. People of all takes But Dr Jess Berentson-Shaw, author of ‘A Matter of Fact: Talking Truth in a Post-truth World,’ told me that it was not as simple as assuming the sharers of Drew’s open letter did not trust the media at all. “In any one issue, there are groups of people who don’t have particularly strong views on that issue. It’s a little bit like a bell curve really - there are people who feel very strongly that we are doing the right thing, like epidemiologists, down one end, and then there’s people who feel very strongly anti-government, ‘conspiracy’-type people, and then there’s everybody else who sit in the middle.” It was the openness and curiosity of people that filled the middle ground that might read this open letter and wonder if there were elements of truth to it, which could lead them to share it in a well-meaning way, Dr Berentson-Shaw said. “That is how you see misinformation being spread in a digital age. People are sitting in the middle, they Communication Studies Research Fellow Dr Merja Myllylahti are like ‘hmm, I am kind of concerned about this, this is interesting, I will share it’, and then one of the things that we see happening with that is that it amplifies incorrect information.” Misinformation mimics It is particularly difficult when misinformation mimics markers of legitimacy. One of the co-authors of the trust in news research, AUT’s Dr Merja Myllylahti, said that the letter is dressed up as a news story in a number of ways, such as through its reference to multiple sources. “The structure of these stories might be misleading for a lot of people. A news story normally has evidence or facts, so when these stories also refer to ‘evidence’ and ‘facts’, it is really confusing for readers. A lot of people do not have fact-checking tools or the capability to actually check those facts. When you have an avalanche of misinformation, it is very, very difficult then for individual people to go and sort out what is fake and what is not.” Indeed, the letter frequently mentions the importance of “facts”, “evidence” and “rational thinking,” which Dr Berentson-Shaw said could appeal to people’s “value sets” that might prioritise the idea of intelligence and cleverness. Interest and curiosity “Assuming that these people are stupid is part of the problem. People are interested, they are curious. Often for people sitting in the middle, they are wanting to be persuaded about an argument, and they are often engaged,” he said. The issue is that while the internet has democratised information availability, it has not democratised the ability to identify good information from bad information, he said. “For lots of people, knowing what a trustworthy source or a good source is really difficult. And that is not because people are stupid. It is because the structures of the internet make it really difficult to tell,” Dr Berentson-Shaw said. While a number of measures have been taken by online platforms to reduce the spread of misinformation about the coronavirus, such as Facebook redirecting users away from false information to authoritative health sources and YouTube deleting channels of high-profile users who have been repeatedly publishing misleading information about Covid-19, Dr Berentson-Shaw said tackling misinformation was not as straightforward as simply replacing false information with the truth. Ximena Smith is a Kiwi journalist currently living and working in London. The above Report (an extract only) and Picture have been published under a Special Arrangement with www.rnz.co.nz. YOUR SUCCESS PARTNER • Stock Management • Print & Hold • In House Design • Online Ordering System Commercial printing service at its best! 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MAY 15, 2020 Businesslink 11 Playing it safe at Alert Level 2 We are now at Alert Level 2. This lifts many restrictions, but means we all now have more responsibility too. It’s up to all of us to ‘play it safe’ so we can stop the virus from spreading again. Keep track of where you go Health services use contact tracing to reach people quickly when there is a risk they have been exposed to a case of COVID-19. This helps stop any further spread. To help them do this effectively you should keep track of the three Ws: Where you went, When you went there, and Who you met. Socialise small You can now socialise with up to 10 friends and whānau. All groups should be 10 people or less, whether you’re catching up at home, or out and about. Make the space Keep a 2-metre distance from anyone you don’t know in public or in retail stores including supermarkets. Keeping people separated in this way helps stop any new transmission. Allow extra time Allowing extra time for your journeys is very important. More people will be travelling again, and more cars will be on the road. Public transport has reduced capacity as people try to keep their distance, so stay calm and be kind. If you can, try to take public transport at off-peak times, and make a note of the service you were on and where you were sitting. As we all work together to ‘make the space’ around us, there may be queues at places where you didn’t need to queue before – including public places like libraries. Remember to remain patient. Plan ahead as much as possible and allow extra time if you can. Thanks for playing it safe New Zealand Now is the time to finish the job we’ve started. If we all play our part, we’ll lower our chances of spreading the virus again. You should also keep a 1-metre distance from other groups when you’re in an environment where further controls are in place – such as work, or a café or cinema. Further controls might include contact recording, limits to the numbers of people allowed on the premises, and other public health measures. Find out more at Covid19.govt.nz
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INL May 15, 2020 Digital Edition

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