MADISON, Wis. (WMTV)-- Social media wars with misinformation on all things COVID-19, and it’s harder to spot.
Kyle Little gets much of his news on social media. He said he cross references his sources to decide what's true.
According to Mike Wagner, a journalism professor at UW-Madison, coronavirus misinformation is less absurd or intentional. Approximately 60 percent of misinformation living on social media platforms, he said, begin as truth, “but get twisted as posts keep getting shared and spread around through the information ecology.”
Aware of the misinformation floating online, Kyle Little said he takes extra steps to cross reference the news he consumes by going directly to the source’s website.
What he learns, he passes on to his parents.
“For somebody like myself that's capable of using the internet and finding the resources necessary to vet that story or that individual or that media company sharing, they [my parents] are entrusting me to give them that information so they can move forward,” Little said.
Wagner explained that social media platforms are taking steps to curb the spread of misinformation. He said that Facebook, for example, marks which posts are “questionable,” reaching a quarter of all coronavirus-related misinformation living on the platform.
He continued, “The problem with that is, let’s say you or I see a post that's marked as a questionable post. Now, when we see another post and it's not marked as a questionable post, we might become more likely to believe it because we know Facebook is looking out for this and will tell us whether or not this is questionable.”
As for tips on how social media users should share content, Wagner suggested that they paint the whole picture, including all the caveats. Also, instead of sharing how something is false, Wagner said people should only share what is true.
According to the International Federation of Library Associations and Institutions, users should check the author and date of the information, as well as the supporting sources to help identify factual posts.
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May 02, 2020 at 10:14AM
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Social media wars with coronavirus misinformation - WMTV
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