The government has announced a rapid response unit of specialists to identify false, misleading and misinformed posts regarding the Covid-19 coronavirus.
Made up of experts from the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport and from the technology sector, they’re working to combat fake news and fraudulent activity on social media platforms.
Fake News
The government is worried that the amount of fake news or ‘false narratives’ circulating around the Covid-19 outbreak, is dangerous and could obscure the actual factual advice given by the NHS.
The unit has already been tackling upto 70 serious incidents a week with purported experts making dangerous claims that could mislead people into thinking a dangerous activity was safe to do, or that the level of severity has been overestimated.
Fraudsters
Along with the fake news are the fraudsters, ready to take advantage of the ongoing epidemic. We’ve listed some of the frauds we’ve seen or heard about on our other blog post here: Coronavirus Scams. We’ll keep that post updated with relevant information.
The public can help stop the spread of potentially dangerous or false stories circulating online by following official government guidance – the ‘SHARE’ checklist. This includes basic but essential advice such as checking the source of a story and analysing the facts before sharing.
Government Release
SHARE Checklist
There are a number of online resources that will help you spot fake news and frauds, but the best resource you have is you, follow the governments SHARE initiative and think before you click.
- Source – make sure information comes from a trusted source
- Headline – always read beyond the headline
- Analyse – check the facts
- Retouched – does the image or video look as though it has been doctored?
- Error – look out for bad grammar and spelling
Some websites that help fact check articles and debunk the fakes and frauds:
