Morning Briefing
Summaries of health policy coverage from major news organizations
With Biggest Tech Giants On Hunt For Misinformation, Conspiracy Theories Flourish On Fringe Platforms
The Washington Post: Sites Like Google Drive And The Internet Archive Have Hosted Misinformation About Covid-19
Within days of social media companies taking down a viral video touting conspiracy theories about the novel coronavirus, a clip popped up on YouTube telling viewers about another way they could still access the banned footage: through a link to the video on the file-sharing service Google Drive. Google Drive is not a social media platform, nor is it set up to tackle the problems that social media companies face: the weaponization of their services to amplify dangerous content. But the use of the Drive link, to the trailer for a documentary called “Plandemic,” reflects a wave of seemingly countless workarounds employed by people motivated to spread misinformation about the virus — efforts that continue to thwart social media companies’ attempts at preventing hoaxes and conspiracy theories from spreading in the midst of the greatest public health crisis in decades. (Dwoskin, 5/20)
The New York Times: How The ‘Plandemic’ Movie And Its Falsehoods Spread Widely Online
There have been plenty of jaw-dropping digital moments during the coronavirus pandemic. There was the time this month when Taylor Swift announced she would air her “City of Lover” concert on television. The time that the cast of “The Office” reunited for an 18-minute-long Zoom wedding. And the time last month that the Pentagon posted three videos that showed unexplained “aerial phenomena.” Yet none of those went as viral as a 26-minute video called “Plandemic,” a slickly produced narration that wrongly claimed a shadowy cabal of elites was using the virus and a potential vaccine to profit and gain power. (Frenkel, Decker and Alba, 5/20)
The Associated Press: New Jersey, Other States, Work To Fight Virus Misinformation
New Jersey’s top homeland security official received nearly nonstop calls in early March from grocery chains, trucking companies and other logistics firms wanting to know if rumors of an impending national lockdown were true. They weren’t, and Jared Maples soon learned the companies were reacting to misinformation stemming from text messages shared widely across the country. (Catalini and Klepper, 5/20)
