TikTok COVID misinformation and Youtube fact checks
It's been about six weeks of self-quarantine and every week has revealed new challenges with the spread of COVID-19 across diferent regions. Adressing unvetted information related to the pandemic is a huge challenge and this week we bring to you latest trends, recommendations and updates related to efforts to combat misinformation.
In this issue of The Checklist, we look at tech platforms and their role in spreading or addressing the spread of misinformation related to the pandemic. This issue also includes highlights from two reports that provide recommendations to ensure people's right to reliable information to fight the current health crisis. In this issue you can also learn more about Meedan's own bot designed for fact-checkers to respond to large events, such as the COVID-19 pandemic.
We hope you take some time off work and your devices this weekend and get all set for the new month!
Here's your weekly roundup!
Fighting the causes and consequences of bad information: the Full Fact Report 2020 (Full Fact)
Full Fact, the UK's independent fact-checking organisation, draws on their ten years of experience to set out why bad information starts, how it spreads and what can be done about it. Full Fact explains in their new report how UK policymakers, journalists, think tanks, charities and internet companies can all take steps to help fight bad information.
"As fact checkers, we want to reduce the spread of information that can disrupt democracy or put people’s lives at risk.
But we also want to ensure that the right information reaches the people who need it most: whether that is the public when trying to make a decision about their health or who to vote for, or policymakers looking to change things for the better in our society." — Full Fact
Is TikTok Escaping Scrutiny About How It’s Handling Coronavirus Misinformation? (Forbes)
TikTok is exploding in popularity and has been installed more than 100 million times in the past year. The platform, which allows users to share short 15-second videos, has grown even more during the past two months, when COVID-19 has landed a huge percentage of the world at home and sheltering in place. And yet, perhaps because of its newness or its medium, has not faced much scrutiny regarding misinformation and fake news in comparison to other industry leaders. While TikTok is less of a news-sharing site than places like Facebook and Twitter, the short videos are evolving into more than lip-syncing, comedy, and goofing around.
“It’s a platform to watch out for in the circulation of conspiracy theories and attention should be paid to that, not least because of its popularity among young people.” — Mark Andrejevic, Monash University
Covid hoaxes are using a loophole to stay alive—even after content is deleted (MIT Technology Review)
Pandemic conspiracy theorists are using the Wayback Machine to promote “zombie content” that evades moderators and fact-checkers. There have been instances where the original page failed to spread fake news, however, a version of the page saved on the Internet Archive’s Wayback Machine absolutely flourished on Facebook. With 649,000 interactions and 118,000 shares, the Wayback Machine’s link achieved much greater engagement than legitimate press outlets. Hidden virality is growing in places where WhatsApp is popular, because it’s easy to forward misinformation through encrypted channels and evade content moderation.
"Throughout the last decade of researching platform politics, I have never witnessed such collateral damage to society caused by unchecked abusive content spread across the web and social media. Everyone interested in fostering the health of the population should strive to hold social-media companies to account in this moment. As well, social-media companies should create a protocol for strategic amplification that defines successful recommendations and healthy news feeds as those maximizing respect, dignity, and productive social values, while looking to independent researchers and librarians to identify authoritative content, especially when our lives are at stake." — Joan Donovan
Expanding fact checks on YouTube to the United States (YouTube Official Blog)
YouTube announced that it’s bringing its fact-checking information panels to the U.S. First introduced in Brazil and India, the expansion comes as COVID-19-related misinformation and conspiracy has proliferated online and through certain media. Fact-check articles will begin appearing in relevant search results, using information pulled from a dozen or so third-party publishers, including The Dispatch, FactCheck.org, PolitiFact and The Washington Post Fact Checker. The site is leveraging ClaimReview’s article tagging system, which is also used by Google Search/New, Bing and Facebook.
"Our fact check information panel relies on an open network of third-party publishers and leverages the ClaimReview tagging system. All U.S. publishers are welcome to participate as long as they follow the publicly-available ClaimReview standards and are either a verified signatory of the International Fact-Checking Network’s (IFCN) Code of Principles or are an authoritative publisher." — YouTube
Fighting Misinformation And Defending Free Expression During COVID-19: Recommendations For States (Access Now)
In this paper, Access Now provides recommendations for protecting freedom of expression and opinion and the right to impart and receive information to enable governments to fight the COVID-19 health crisis in a rights-respecting manner. There will be an aftermath to the COVID-19 outbreak and the measures governments put in place right now will determine what it will look like. The recommendations outlined in the report are designed to ensure that the rule of law, and the rights to freedom of expression and opinion, as well as the right to receive and to impart information, are protected throughout this crisis and in the future. Under no circumstances should any government allow people’s fundamental rights to fall victim to this pandemic.
"Access Now is committed to protecting human rights and to contributing to governments’ responses to the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic. These responses must promote public health, prevent discrimination, and ensure access to reliable and timely information; defend unrestricted access to an open, affordable, and secure internet; ensure the enjoyment of freedom of expression and of opinion; and protect privacy and personal data."
Trump’s Disinfectant Talk Trips Up Sites’ Vows Against Misinformation (The New York Times)
Facebook, Twitter and YouTube have declined to remove the U.S. president’s statements about unproven coronavirus treatments. President Donald Trump suggested at a recent press briefing that disinfectants and ultraviolet light were possible treatments for the coronavirus. His remarks immediately found their way onto Facebook, Instagram and other social media sites, and people rushed to defend the president’s statements as well as mock them. But Facebook, Twitter and YouTube have declined to remove Mr. Trump’s statements posted online in video clips and transcriptions of the briefing, saying he did not specifically direct people to pursue the unproven treatments. This inaction on the president's posts stands out because the companies have said for weeks that they would not permit false information about the coronavirus to proliferate.
"Most of the tech companies developed health misinformation policies with the expectation that there would be a competent government and reputable health authority to point to... Given that false information is coming from the White House, the companies have been thrown for a loop." — Renee DiResta, Stanford Internet Observatory
News from Meedan
Introducing Check Bot: A Customizable COVID-19 WhatsApp Bot for Fact-Checkers – Meedan
Meedan is pleased to roll out Check Bot: a fully customizable bot designed for fact-checkers and journalists to run fact-checking tiplines on Whatsapp, Facebook messenger, Twitter DM, and more.
It has the following key features:
A fully customizable interaction scenario, allowing fact-checking teams to spin up interactive menus of frequently-requested content to react to events rapidly
Enables audience-submitted tips for queries not answered by the bot
Ties directly to a team’s Check database, allowing them to send previously fact-checked reports
Interested in a demo? Get in touch at hello@meedan.com