25000000 people have now tested positive for covert 19 of on the well to but Health Officials are also battling against online conspiracy theories and untested planes so how do we fight a pandemic of misinformation this is inside story. Hello and welcome to this special edition of inside story in collaboration with the doha forum and unesco and fully battle the coronavirus pandemic has forced all of us to take a step back from our daily routines we now spend more time at home working remotely and relying on the internet for the latest updates on the virus but theres also been an unprecedented rise in misinformation online and on social media platforms everything from miracle cures the origins of the virus and even the existence of the virus have been questions conspiracy theories have even led to injuries and deaths as people believe false and dangerous traumas posing as medical advice and discrimination stigmatization racism and hate speech have also increased because of these campaigns so how do we fight this and is some of the misinformation being put out deliberately when our guests in just a moment but before we introduce our panel lets hear from the head of the World Health Organization whose agency has created an entire department dedicated to fighting against misinformation this is what dr ted was out anon said about the issue earlier this year we are just fighting an appeal we are fighting an info to me. Free can use spreads faster and more easily than this post and is just as dangerous thats why were also working with social Media Companies like Facebook Google been interest tencent. To talk youtube and others to counter the spread of rumors and mis information we call on all governments companies a News Organization is toward with us to sound the appropriate level of our learn without funny the flames of hysteria. And the head of the u. N. Secretary general antonio terrace has spoken of the need to urgently promote scientific and Accurate Information around the world people are scared they want to know what to do and where to turn for advice this is a time for science and solidarity yet the Global Museum for them it is spreading harmful he also advised since they Call Solutions are proliferating false words are fueling the airwaves wide conspiracy theories are infecting the internets hatred is going viral stigmatizing and vilifying people and groups the world must unite against this disease. And the vaccine distrusts 1st thrust in science well lets take a closer look at the types of false information out there there is of course this information which is often spread intentionally for a variety of reasons while mis information is generally said innocently despite being incorrect a new study by the american journal of tropical medicine and hygiene says false information led to the deaths of 800 people globally and the admission of nearly 6000 patients to hospitals in the 1st 3 months of this year many of those incidents involved socalled miracle cures such as drinking methanol or alcohol based cleaning products as a result of false information they have also been numerous reports of untie asian racism on the streets of australia india and the United Kingdom and a u. S. Based Advocacy Group has recorded more than 1100 cases of house meant and attacks there. Well lets now bring in our guests in paris we have guy bears a whos director of freedom of expression and Media Development at unesco and here in doha dr Hassan Abdel Rahman dean of the college of Health Sciences at kata university and warm welcome to you both welcome to inside story so mr guy version in paris that me start with you Bad Information whether its produced intentionally or otherwise has always existed what is unique about the way misinformation works now during this call that crisis and what have been some of its impacts right well i work for unesco and we discourage part of the u. N. Which is very much involved in vote is dependent journalism and really expression so we approach this question from that point of view and for us the problem is not freedom of expression. The problem for freedom of expression is that its information because this information to carry. Is false and misleading content with that picture to be on for this context. Its 1st amplified by Internet Companies that make money from this kind of content and 2nd of all. This information can only exist if in fact tax freedom of expression because freedom of expression and journal is what exposes this information the agendas behind this information and so the issue is not that freedom of expression causes this information or freedom of expression is the problem and actually freedom of expression for you know its part of the solution to this information right weve only talk about the solutions lets talk about the causes explain to us why some of this Bad Information this information in this case is being put out deliberately by whom and to what end sky vision well you mentioned earlier that this information misinformation and of course a lot of misinformation begins and disinformation so for example somebodys trying to have a financial scam to trick people to come in and out of their money maybe use this information to say im my americal it will save you from covert. That is their motivation that message can then be circulated by people who think its true and just want to circulate for what reasons so youve got the interesting interplay between this information that starts with bad intent and then these distributed wealth isnt intended and so the people who distribute this information are not always the same as those who create it and those who created can a financial reason political reasons geo political reasons it logical reasons they may also be very well organized and there may well be paid to do this so that theyre trying to. Prepared to put a lot of money for particular reasons and she creating the confusion and the polarization that hand in hand with this Information Dr abdul rahim let me bring you into the conversation not youre a Public Health expert do you think the info demick has made the pandemic worse what are some of the Health Outcomes youve observed resulting from disintegration when it comes to the coronavirus pandemic. Right. In your report you talked about a number of components of misinformation more disinformation so things like stigma or conspiracy theories or false information and sickness actually very concerning because it has a number of effect on the number of levels right so it has an effect on people who might have the buyers or have the disease and of course other than being. A very negative influence on their Mental Health it also has a very counterproductive effect in terms of what were trying to do in a Public Health response and that is it drives people away from the Health System from seeking care from getting treatment from getting good advice rather than directing people towards it because of course people are very concerned about being mistreated or labeled or stigmatized at the same time the people who find themselves and the other groups of people who are not labeled or stigmatized might have a false sense of security and we saw that for example and in other diseases so we saw that with hiv the aids where the idea was if youre not gay then you dont have to worry about each id aids and we know that thats not true so its all over people to not take precautions or not to take proper actions because they dont think that they are part of the group that is so stigma can be. Very very damaging to a semi the same i was going to ask you do you have another specific example about what makes misinformation about corona virus so potent and do you think its gotten worse as a crisis has evolved or is it getting slightly better now. Well i think the thing is that there is so much that is yet unknown and so as long as there is sometimes a vacuum of information or information that is still evolving thats going to give groups for our mis information and for it this information and the thing is. I think what what we have to become more comfortable with is. Communicating uncertainty and saying that we are concerned and i know thats very very uncomfortable because people really like to wait and by people i mean you know official organizations and so on they like to wait until they knew all the back and until theyre very shit well what that does is a couple of things one it creates a vacuum which can quickly be filled with mis and berm ation and this information and the other is that you know that the science is emerging and being you know were finding out new things so it is ok to bring the public along on this journey and to say this is the best information that we have now but we know that it can change because what happens is when you know guidelines suddenly changed for example about face knots or something and the public hasnt really been taken on this journey to them it just seems like an about turn that is very very subtle and not that kind of you know the shadow on the credibility of organizations and so. Its not likely to get better in my opinion as long as there is so much that we still need to know and to communicate you talked about credit credibility and trust dr abdul rahim in the u. S. Weve seen President Donald Trump leading the coronavirus briefings often even contradicting his own Health Experts like Dr Anthony Fauci whose responsibility should it be in your opinion to ensure that the public gets the right information about the spine demick. Well i mean its not one persons responsibility its everyones responsibility and part of the problem of misinformation and disinformation is that it erodes credibility of the institution longer lived on and trusted and undermines trust in them so thats really problematic but i think the interesting thing about trust is in just a 2 sions its its the kind of credit in the bank that you want to have before you have a crisis like this where you need to. You know to get the publics cooperation and to get the Publics Trust and compliance and so on so you dont start making money when you need money to start making money and saving it in the bank for when he needed so thats why we saw you know across the world whether its in the u. S. Or other places you know when when there is a problem with trust in the government it only gets worse and time and you needed to have established that that credibility beforehand so i you know what comes to mind for example is. International survey that was done on the coronavirus it was done by a number of universities Harvard Cambridge and so on and you know all the data online and talks about trust and government and right trust and the governments response and in some places to distrust is as high is 80 percent right and when you look at those countries that just not something that happened overnight with with the epidemic but it certainly probably was exacerbated by the right and i guess also the fact that you have sometimes perhaps leaders and politicians casting doubt on the information provided by scientists doesnt help i guess the scientists establish and gain trust from the public ill come back to that in just a moment let me let me just bring back guy beijing into the conversation guy you talked about the bad actors and there are plenty of them of course who want to exploit this crisis for. Economic and even political gain but what are the main causes of misinformation that we should be most worried about is it you know the tide coming from political operatives or perhaps social media algorithms unregulated media which of those is the most harmful in your opinion well its a combination of the about but certainly the key moment in the whole process is not the fact that there are agents bad actors. Its not fact that there are naive people that may and the new thing is that the transmission between these is under the control of big Internet Companies that need people say are not doing enough to really. Stop promoting this kind of information in many cases its not even a situation that. They allow it to exist on their own tax forms but actually they are amplifying and recommending it because they all grew thems realize that this is the kind of content that attracts interest and the companys stock in the company they want to take money and whatever is going to attract people they dont mind it will just use that content allow their content to go there because it generates more eyeballs watching and they can solve that attention to advertisers right so this is really the social Media Company in the chain yet some of these social Media Companies have been making changes and as weve seen with facebook and twitter labeling a misleading tweets Online Platform certainly are the main tools for this information and consumer hoaxes but can they alone be blamed. Well theyre laying less because theyre the said they are the rhythms are really the engine by which this information is being amplified and it is being exploited so there are 2 dimensions one is they have the employer they have the algorithms that do this and 2 people know how to use those outcomes so they have some play and they arent really thats thats a good point ever there transparency still leaves a lot to be desired so example they sometimes will tell you how much information they are labeled a mistress information theyve labeled even success theyve taken off it sites but they release this information when they want to they dont provide an ongoing activist so people can see can see one o y v that this information this this information before it was actually labeled taken down book well theyre actually take the step forward and a look at those people who have seen it that indeed it was inAccurate Information so theres a huge amount more that companies can do even if theyre not their original access and not the upstream people they are the stream by which the stuff is being spread talk to one another i am as guy mentioned despite social Media Companies removing or nay billing information about misleading information about vaccines for example you know a lot of people still believe that you know bill gates for instance wants to use a Coronavirus Vaccine to implant microchips in people do you see the achievement of an effective vaccine being undermined by by this type of information and what more do you think social Media Companies should be doing. The misinformation and the dissent from ations surrounded by scenes can be very very harmful because right now you have a number of companies that are racing to come up with a vaccine but there is always another component to that which is peoples willingness to take the backseat and that has to be someone affected by what theyre seeing on social media and also offline and i think we have to we have to you know to make sure that we make the point that misinformation and disinformation i mean yes is being. Transported to a lot faster with social media but it can also happen offline as well athens in a lot of spaces and that is likely to unfortunately if its not counter to influence peoples readiness to take up that scenes guy big your you all thoughts about what could be the most effective ways in fighting misinformation and disinformation you know even for us says jen this reporting on this pandemic has been extremely challenging because of misinformation as weve seen is not just coming from citizen citizens but also in some cases from governments and even journalists and theres a war of narratives being waged by great powers how do we counter this what sort of approach is needed. Well i dont mean that credibility is the key here and if youre going to counter this you need you each have credible information as i said your biggest. And in an adverse reaction because its not just funny i get people ignorant theres a really we have been planted in peoples minds so you have to kill those weeds before you could really successfully plants that knowledge now and i think thats where scientists the media and guts have a key role to play. Particularly let me start with the governments because 1st of all governments need to allow our mediocre to be free and independent so that they can actually pull their credibility and tell the story and to many governments who are still jumpy get especially when the public needs critical media out thats them and when you have a controlled media system well people dont believe that. At the same time governments need to do is open up their own Information Holdings a lot more governments need to be far more transparent with the statistics about infections for example but i think its about tests and more transparent about the contracts countries that they are getting to counter code to these emergency conditions dr abdul rahim i what i do want to get your thoughts on the issue of free speech how can we stop on full information without harming free speech i dont think free speech is freedom to put out misinformation so again i think by teaching people to be to educating people to be. Aware or consumers and to be able to assess claims then if someone says theyre pretty good have seen or misuse their freedom of speech to put forward information that can be harmful i think they should be hauled out on it and i think they should be held accountable for it as well i think thats really important because. It does end up causing a lot of harm i just want to add something on the on the issue of media and i certainly agree with what dr berger just said and i want to say that in our part of the world i think one area that theres a lot of strengthening and weve seen its effect in other places and not necessary here in the science journals i mean there ha