Rumors ... another epidemic that is bedeviling WHO

In the face of the spread of false information about the Covid-19 epidemic on social media, the World Health Organization broadcasts a daily press conference to answer questions from journalists, inform and reassure the public, and provide information to politicians around the world.

Le Monde newspaper said that this daily forum, which has been broadcast since the beginning of the crisis from the headquarters of the organization in Geneva, in which its Ethiopian director Tidros Adanum Gebresus, with the help of his close aides, provides tips to fight the virus and others to the same extent to fight the waves of disinformation, stressing that "our biggest enemy so far is not the virus in Same, but these rumors and fear and stigmatize others. "

The newspaper pointed to examples of misleading information published on the Internet, such as what is said that the virus is transmitted by mosquitoes and that it is treated with garlic and disappears with high temperatures in the spring, noting the danger that social networks have become the main source of information for people under the age of 35 years, Where 95 million times has been searched for the phrase "precautions to be taken before exiting" on the Ziahongshu network of 300 million subscribers.

Simple and unprecedented strategy

The newspaper said that this is the first time that the organization has been seeking a team dedicated to combating the various effects of the epidemic to address the problem of the source of information, as Sylvie Brand, architect of the WHO strategy to combat the effects of the epidemic, says that "social networks contribute to amplifying rumors by transferring them quickly and more than before, completely Just as people transmit viruses faster and further away. "

Tariq Gasarevich, from the WHO communication service, says the organized strategy is simple, but unprecedented, based on providing information that has been approved by the World Health Organization on the virus to be read as broadly as possible, and that "we have developed partnerships with Facebook, Twitter, Pinteris and Pick Talk and they are helping us." In reaching the public in countries most affected by the virus, and in exposing the spread of false information. "

Thus, any research related to the Coronavirus on these networks, its owner leads to a sign indicating the site of the government or the Ministry of Health in the country in which the user is located, and it provides him recommendations issued by the World Health Organization.

"The organization is currently working with Instagram and YouTube on the possibility of spreading prevention messages through influential people, especially in Asia," said Alexandra Kuzmanovic, who is responsible for social networks at the World Health Organization.

In addition to the organization's partnership with Pinterest, the newspaper said that Google has created a "distress alert" in multiple languages ​​displaying links on the WHO site, and that Facebook announced a few days ago that it would ban ads that promise to treat the virus or that feed the panic.

A breeding ground for conspiracy theories

The newspaper warned that combating the effects of the various epidemics is not enough to focus only on the way people are informed, but must also pay attention to what they choose to believe, especially since world public opinion has not been less confident in institutions in twenty years than it is now.

In the context of the new epidemic, the floor appears fertile - as the newspaper says - to the flourishing conspiracy theories, and more common that the virus was deliberately made in a laboratory in Wuhan, by groups of major drug manufacturers in order to reap fortunes from selling vaccines in the future.

"The last time we witnessed a pandemic made headlines was Ebola," said Souiri Moon, coordinator of the World Health Center at the Institute of Graduate Studies and Development in Geneva, noting that this accompanied the beginning of the rise of extremism and populism in Europe and the United States in conjunction with the election of current US President Donald Trump, except "The political environment today has become more conducive to developing conspiracy theories."

In this context, American diplomatic circles assert, for example, that they have been facing for a month a Russian campaign of misinformation that exploits the fragility of circumstances to spread through hundreds of accounts on Twitter the idea that the virus is a biological weapon created by the CIA in order to destabilize the Chinese economy.

Meanwhile, Trump accuses his opposition Democratic Party of being the root cause of the Coruna virus, trying on this occasion to close the border with Mexico, although there is absolutely no link between the emergence of the Corona virus in the United States with this country.

"We have a choice. Can we unite to confront a dangerous and common enemy? Or will we allow fear and suspicion to divert our attention and divide us?" Le Monde concludes.