Web of lies has deadly effects
CONSPIRACY theorists are using Facebook to urge Australians to refuse vital coronavirus tests, sparking calls for a clampdown on the sinister “infodemic” of deadly misinformation spreading like wildfire.
Threats of a second wave of the virus failed to convince 10,000 Victorians to undergo crucial testing and self-isolate last week.
Victoria’s Health Minister Jenny Mikakos said it was disappointing that conspiracy theories were circulating, with more than half a million lives lost from the disease globally.
As news broke of the Victorian test refusals, people took to social media to spread bizarre theories and urge others to decline the swabs. ernment “Stick it fabricating to this corrupt ol Covid govdeaths to push there (sic) UN Agenda in Australia,” one woman wrote, citing a long debunked conspiracy theory that the UN is trying to install a global dictatorship.
“5G monitoring system,” one man replied, ignoring all scientific advice to draw a link between the new mobile phone towers and the virus.
Others called it a “globalist” or “Satanist” attempt at “mind control”, another dubbed the deadly virus a “scamdemic”, while others accused the “New World Order’’ of trying to take over the country.
La Trobe University Associate Professor Andrea Carson is part of a group of academics and journalists enlisted to meet with Facebook a few times a year to help advise and educate the social media company on topics such as misinformation. She said Facebook had expressed concern about the rapid and massive spread of misinformation around the virus and wanted to turn people toward trusted sources.
“It has become a wild west and it has real-life consequences,” she said.
Dr Carson said Facebook had previously been reluctant to take down comments and preferred to “dial down their algorithm” to make dubious posts less visible. But that was changing and comments were now being deleted.
However a day after the conspiracy theorists began bombarding news stories about Victoria, the comments remained visible and supporters continued to believe them.
In a statement yesterday, a Facebook spokesperson said the company was aggressively going after misinformation about the pandemic and set up teams dedicated to the effort.