Covid-19
A group of scholars and nonprofit organizations have asked web platforms to keep track of the content they’re removing during the coronavirus pandemic so they can make it available to researchers studying how online information affects public health. The signatories — including Access Now, the Committee to Protect Journalists, and EU DisinfoLab — sent an open letter to social media and content sharing services, urging them to preserve data even as they remove misinformation.
“The importance of accurate information during this pandemic is clear. But knowledge about the novel coronavirus is rapidly evolving,” reads the letter. That creates an “unprecedented opportunity” to study how online information can affect health outcomes and to evaluate the consequences of specific moderation practices like using heavy automation. “Such studies rely on information that your companies control — including information you are automatically blocking and removing from your services. It is essential that platforms preserve this data.”
The letter urges companies to preserve content that is removed from the service, including accounts, posts, and videos. It also encourages them to keep records of the removal process itself, like whether a takedown was automated or received human oversight, whether users tried to appeal the takedown, and whether content was reported but left online. Some of that information could be included in public transparency reports, and other pieces could be released specifically to researchers. “It will be crucial to develop safeguards to address the privacy issues raised by new or longer data retention and by the sharing of information with third parties,” says the letter. “But the need for immediate preservation is urgent.”
The novel coronavirus has spurred companies like Twitter, Facebook, and YouTube to remove what they deem harmful misinformation, including stories that promote fake cures or suggest that health measures like social distancing don’t work. Facebook has removed some calls for protests that violate state shelter-in-place rules, although that appears to be a very small proportion of the events. Twitter has deleted posts from Brazil’s and Venezuela’s presidents on unproven treatments for COVID-19.
And researchers are looking at the links between people’s media diets and their behavior during the pandemic. A recent study examined the difference between viewers of Fox News hosts Sean Hannity and Tucker Carlson, who took starkly different stances on the coronavirus — the former downplayed its importance, while the latter sounded an early alarm. Combining survey data from Fox News audiences with information about infection and death rates, researchers found that areas with a higher Hannity viewership had roughly 30 percent more cases in mid-March and 21 percent more COVID-19 deaths in late March.
Social media has also created important channels for information and misinformation, so research into what users are seeing — and what sites are removing — could provide a valuable window into how people engaged with the pandemic. It could also help track any campaigns to deliberately sow confusion or panic and help platforms understand how to promote good information during a time of uncertainty.
Covid-19 Researchers want social media companies to preserve coronavirus misinformation data
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