COVID-19 meets Election 2020: the perfect storm for misinformation
Automated bots, programmed to churn out tweets and retweets, almost certainly are playing a role in spreading coronavirus disinformation, but how much is still not known, West said. Researchers at Carnegie-Mellon University recently estimated that nearly half of Twitter accounts posting about coronavirus may not be actual people. But the group’s research hasn’t been published yet and is being questioned by other experts.
“It’s really hard to determine whether something’s a bot or not,” West said.
Perhaps the most corrosive effect of pervasive misinformation and disinformation is the way it undermines confidence in the very institutions we all rely on, especially during crises, he added. “The thing that scares me the most is that we’re getting to the point where some people don’t trust anything.”
As the election approaches, the pandemic and its human and economic impacts are certain to become even more entwined with politics and other disinformation efforts, Caulfield said. “I think what we’re looking at now makes what we were facing in 2016 look almost quaint,” he said, referring to organized networks intent on creating confusion and swaying the outcome.
With in-person campaigning on hold, political groups are increasingly creating internet sites that often mimic legitimate news sites and conceal their partisan roots, according to NewsGuard, a startup that tracks internet misinformation and identifies the top purveyors.
See the full story here: https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/health/covid-19-meets-election-2020-the-perfect-storm-for-misinformation