Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
. 2021 Jun;38(2):143-149.
doi: 10.1111/hir.12320. Epub 2020 Jul 12.

An exploration of how fake news is taking over social media and putting public health at risk

Salman Bin Naeem  1 , Rubina Bhatti  1 , Aqsa Khan  2
Affiliations

An exploration of how fake news is taking over social media and putting public health at risk

Salman Bin Naeem et al. Health Info Libr J. 2021 Jun.

Abstract

Recent statistics show that almost 1/4 of a million people have died and four million people are affected either with mild or serious health problems caused by coronavirus (COVID-19). These numbers are rapidly increasing (World Health Organization, May 3, 2020c). There is much concern during this pandemic about the spread of misleading or inaccurate information. This article reports on a small study which attempted to identify the types and sources of COVID-19 misinformation. The authors identified and analysed 1225 pieces of COVID-19 fake news stories taken from fact-checkers, myth-busters and COVID-19 dashboards. The study is significant given the concern raised by the WHO Director-General that 'we are not just fighting the pandemic, we are also fighting infodemic'. The study concludes that the COVID-19 infodemic is full of false claims, half backed conspiracy theories and pseudoscientific therapies, regarding the diagnosis, treatment, prevention, origin and spread of the virus. Fake news is pervasive in social media, putting public health at risk. The scale of the crisis and ubiquity of the misleading information require that scientists, health information professionals and journalists exercise their professional responsibility to help the general public identify fake news stories. They should ensure that accurate information is published and disseminated.J.M.

Keywords: global health; information sources; public health; social media.

PubMed Disclaimer

Conflict of interest statement

There is no conflict of interest.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
The sources of misinformation about COVID‐19
Figure 2
Figure 2
The spread of fake news stories between January and April 2020
Figure 3
Figure 3
Visual map showing the relationship of co‐occurring interrelated terms
See this image and copyright information in PMC

Similar articles

See all similar articles

Cited by

See all "Cited by" articles

References

    1. Bruno Kessler Foundation . (2020). Fake news in the time of C‐19. Available at: https://members.tortoisemedia.com/2020/03/23/the‐infodemic‐fake‐news‐cor... (Accessed April 27, 2020).
    1. Calisher, C. , Carroll, D. , Colwell, R. , Corley, R. B. , Daszak, P. , Drosten, C. , … Gorbalenya, A. (2020). Statement in support of the scientists, public health professionals, and medical professionals of China combatting COVID‐19. The Lancet, 395, e42–e43. 10.1016/S0140-6736(20)30418-9 - DOI - PMC - PubMed
    1. Caulfield, T. (2020). Pseudoscience and COVID‐19‐ we’ve had enough already. Nature. Available at: https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586‐020‐01266‐z (Accessed April 27, 2020). doi: 10.1038/d41586-020-01266-z - DOI - PubMed
    1. Joseph, E. U. , & Adam, M. E. (2020). The coronavirus conspiracy boom: Nearly a third of the people we polled believe that the virus was manufactured on purpose. Why? Available at: https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2020/04/what‐can‐coronavirus‐... (Accessed May 1, 2020).
    1. Llewellyn, S. (2020). Covid‐19: How to be careful with trust and expertise on social media. British Medical Journal, 368, 1–2. 10.1136/bmj.m1160 - DOI - PubMed