Misinformation has derailed a rational response to Covid-19 since the emergence of the virus. Now, despite the heroic efforts of vaccine developers, misinformation remains the principal obstacle to overcome in escaping the pandemic. This is a view that Dr. Deborah Birx expressed Sunday on Meet the Press. She lamented the imminent danger copious misinformation places on Americans between now and vaccine distribution, stating, "and so I hear community members parroting back those situations, parroting back that masks don't work, parroting back that we should work toward herd immunity, parroting back that gatherings don't result in superspreading events. And I think our job is to constantly say those are myths." With an end in sight its hard to see us as anything but our own worst enemy. Here, I will detail the counterproductive efforts in social media moderation, how popular politicians destroy public trust, and how this impacts the final stretch of the virus and well beyond.
An Uphill Battle
Time and time again 2020 has shown that the United States was not only ill-prepared to handle a pandemic, but too the storm of misinformation that has come in its wake. “Fake News” has been a household saying in the US since the 2016 campaign, but its full impact hasn’t been realized until this year. At the root of this obstacle social media organizations have acknowledged responsibility from the start. However, efforts to oust falsity from their platforms has been nothing short of a Sisyphean task.
Facebook have been forthright in disclosing their approach to removing false posts. In the summer they announced removing 7 million misleading statements and marking another 93 million posts during the onset of the pandemic. The sheer volume shown here is alarming. To add to this, Oxford Reuters Institute released a study during the same time frame showing how ineffective these efforts proved, “On Twitter, 59% of posts rated as false in our sample by fact-checkers remain up. On YouTube, 27% remain up, and on Facebook, 24% of false-rated content in our sample remains up without warning labels.”
While social media platforms struggle against floods of misinformation, they too struggle against their own business model. This is a reality indicated in, “Getting to the Source of Infodemics” a study produced by Nathalie Maréchal, Rebecca MacKinnon, Jessica Dheere. Maréchal et. al., found the prominence of algorithmic targeted marketing as a key obstacle purposely bypassed by social media organizations. Targeted posts have been incredibly successful in connecting online users to content catered to their own interests, but in doing so simultaneously propagate echo chamber communities fed off of misinformation. Post moderation has not been able to overcome these echo chambers. In their words, “Content moderation is a downstream effort by platforms to clean up the mess caused upstream by their own systems designed for automated amplification and audience targeting.” Moderation is a net that allows nearly half of all false posts to get by already, and audience targeting is the ceaseless current delivering misinformation directly to susceptible populations. As is, there are no built in incentives to better mitigate the systems that spread misinformation on social media, and allows this misinformation to fester unchallenged.
The Man Birx Won’t Name
When pressed by Chuck Todd on Trump’s impact on the spreading of misinformation Dr. Birx sidestepped the question, deflecting to other unspecified sources. Birx has remained reluctant to directly criticize the president throughout her time as a member of the coronavirus task force. For the past 8 months this has been understandable; Birx surely found she would have had a greater impact as a member of the task force then sidelined for opposing the president. This is not to suggest that Birx hasn’t played a key part in voicing important contestation toward other White House nonsense. Her fierce opposition to working with Scott Atlas showed there was a limit. Now with Atlas gone from the team at least there is less drivel with an MD next to it. Those working within the executive have had no real ability to dissent from their boss. However, with Trump heading out the door and misinformation a leading danger, one wonders what is stopping her at this point?
Trump is not only an instigator in the spread of misinformation, but perhaps is the single most impactful propagator. Cornell Alliance for Science launched a study quantifying the most cited topics present in online misinformation pieces at the outset of Covid- 19. The study Concluded that, “Trump mentions comprised 37.9% of the overall misinformation conversation, well ahead of any other topics. We conclude that the President of the United States was likely the largest driver of the COVID-19 misinformation.” This study was concluded prior to Twitter’s notable defense against the President’s tweets in the runup to this year's election. While this focus was primarily targeted at election misinformation one wonders what effect this has had on trustworthiness at large. With “this claim is disputed” receiving meme status and so many trump sycophants undeterred by twitter’s warning label, there is a danger that the law of unintended consequences has reared its ugly head and pushed conspiratorialists further down the rabbit hole. A population of people whose participation in responsible behavior and vaccinations may be the only way out of the pandemic.
It should not go without saying, health guideline advocates have not done themselves any good with recent hypocrisy. Be it Gavin Newsom’s dinner party, Austin Mayor Steve Adler’s trip to Mexico, or the multiple mayors and prominent politicians who celebrated Biden’s victory in crowded streets, these actions have made it increasingly difficult to criticize Trump. Only adding unnecessary obstacles for healthcare officials attempting to convince American’s to act responsibly.
The Vaccine Problem
The good news: recent polls have been tracking positively for those who will take the Covid-19 vaccine. The bad news: still only 60% of Americans say they will get the vaccine, and many are reluctant to be the first in line. We did not need to be here. Misinformation has no doubt played a part. Public polling showed 72% of Americans willing to take the vaccine in March, but dipped to an all-time low in September as misinformation grew. There isn’t a precise number of vaccinations needed to achieve the goal, but it is safe to say that public health officials have a fair number of Americans to get on board. Not to mention decades of anti-vaxxer propaganda that came before. Unfortunately, the methods proposed to do so now don’t deviate from what has already been done. Facebook has promised to remove false posts from their platform. Their track record so far should leave us worried. Three living former presidents say they will take the vaccine when available, but for the conspiratorial minded among us this is unlikely to do the trick. Hopefully social pressure will have the final say, but in what timeframe is another question.
Unfortunately for so many the damage has already been done. The current spread is beyond rationale. Thanksgiving has shown, and the winter holidays are likely to show, there is only so much asking people to act responsibly can do. The die is cast; the cat is out of the bag. The losses have already been so terrible and the optimistic projections for 2021 are no better. Perhaps our fate was decided before the virus had even spread. A result of our dissent into a post-truth society. Misinformation was not new in 2020. It only became more visible and impacted us more directly. Unlike Covid-19 there isn’t a known solution to misinformation. However, if 2020 has proven anything, a solution is just as imperative.
Succinct and powerful article. "Trump is not only an instigator in the spread of misinformation, but perhaps is the single most impactful propagator." Closely followed by Facebook.