Understanding and neutralising covid-19 misinformation and disinformation

Intellectual Virtues and Scientific Endeavor: A Reflection on the Commitments Inherent in Generating and Possessing Knowledge

“…Meanwhile, environmental and health crises represent a fertile ground for uncertainty, confusion, disinformation, and misinformation (Nelson et al, 2020; Wang et al, 2022). It is not surprising, given the diversity of social structures that characterize the post-truth culture, such as epistemic bubbles that arise from an inadequate (though usually unintentional) coverage resulting from the omission of important epistemic resources (e.g., hypotheses, evidence, arguments), as well as echo chambers, in which diverse viewpoints relevant to the discussions at hand are actively excluded and discredited (Nguyen, 2020), the latter being particularly relevant when explaining the resistance to evidence that characterizes climate change deniers (Nguyen, 2020) and the anti-vaccine attitudes in COVID-19 pandemic (Müller et al, 2022).…”

Planning for the next pandemic: what The BMJ’ s research team learnt from covid-19

“…Editors at medical journals had to sift through a huge amount of research and curate it for a public and policy makers that were hungry for reliable information. The extent to which social media provided a platform for harmful and unscientific ideas was dismaying8 and exacerbated the pressure for editors and journals to offset such misinformation. The Surgisphere scandal, which led the New England Journal of Medicine and the Lancet to retract two high profile covid-19 papers, showed that even the best journals and their editors can be duped 9…”

Trust and transformation: an agenda for creating resilient and sustainable health systems

“…8 9 Loss of trust has been fuelled by attacks on health workers -during and since the pandemic -typically from those opposed to the measures that were necessary to interrupt transmission of SARS-CoV-2. 10 This has been facilitated by social media, spreading disinformation seeking to undermine trust in science and the health workers who use it to deliver evidence based care. If the public is to retain and regain trust, they must be confident that the system can transform in ways that allow it to meet their needs now and, as importantly, in the future.…”

“…Their experiences leave them vulnerable to the arguments by some that universal healthcare — to which governments have committed in the Sustainable Development Goals — is somehow unaffordable or unsustainable 89. Loss of trust has been fuelled by attacks on health workers — during and since the pandemic — typically from those opposed to the measures that were necessary to interrupt transmission of SARS-CoV-2 10. This has been facilitated by social media, spreading disinformation seeking to undermine trust in science and the health workers who use it to deliver evidence based care.…”