TACKLING DISINFORMATION
One of the biggest challenges for governments
during a global pandemic is disinformation,
which can so easily be spread on social networks
like Twitter and Facebook. The former began its
response to COVID-19 in January, adding links
to official information sources like the World
Health Organization and the Centers for Disease
Control and Prevention, whilst Wikipedia has
introduced strict new measures to ensure pages
that relate to medicine and the virus face higher
scrutiny, with the most relevant pages only
editable by peer-reviewed medical journalists.
YouTube is censoring COVID-19 videos and
conspiracy theories, and all networks have
updated their policies to punish those who
spread lies and false information, permanently
banning or suspending their accounts.
In China, where the outbreak began,
popular social media app WeChat and live-
streaming service YY have been censoring
any coronavirus-related keywords, whilst the
government called for the Plague Inc game to
be removed from the App Store. Companies
like Apple have introduced new COVID-19 apps
and sections in Apple News and the App Store,
whilst Google and Facebook are donating
millions of dollars in advertising credits to
governments, used to share vital public
health information such as handwashing,
social distancing, and directing citizens to
the most appropriate healthcare resources
like websites and apps so as not to overwhelm
vital services like emergency responders and
hospital beds. Both Google and Facebook rely
heavily on advertising spend from small
businesses and will no doubt suffer during