The COVID infodemic could kill as many people as the pandemic, so take this test by Cambridge Uni...

Hi, this is Jim James, and welcome to this episode of Speak PR. I'm going to ask you if you'd like to go viral with me today, because I'm going to talk about the pandemic and that the biggest problem now facing rollout in vaccinations appears to be the information pandemic, or rather the spread of fake news. And the University of Cambridge have created a very cool online game called GoViralGame.com, which I've tested, and it shows how misinformation can be amplified and shared. And I'm going to share with you why I think that's a problem and also that we need to figure out some solutions. So let's just look at what's been happening since February. Already the global pandemic news was spreading fast, and the World Health Organization issued a warning about the infodemic. There was a wave of fake news and misinformation about the deadly news disease on social media. Now, this has been reported across the world, including in India on the Economic Times, but also came out just this week on CNN that the concern now is that people are actually refusing to get involved with the vaccines because they've bought into some of the misinformation. Last month, there was a study from Cornell University in the US And it found that President Trump had been the world's biggest driver of COVID-19 misinformation following the pandemic. And there have been numerous studies, including one by a group called First Draft, that's really talking about the disinformation that's being shared. And a chap called Rory Smith from the website First Draft said, from an information perspective, the coronavirus crisis has not only underlined the sheer scale of misinformation worldwide, but also the negative impact misinformation can have on trust in vaccines, institutions, scientific findings more broadly. Now, it's been noted that in some countries, for example, in Pakistan, up to 10% of the population surveyed had not even heard of the coronavirus. So it does seem as though coronavirus news, which for some of us is everywhere, for some is nowhere, but for many the news isn't reliable and it's actually having a negative impact on their trust in the way that the vaccines might be rolled out. So there was a study done by the professor at Brandeis University, um, and it was a study entitled Social Media and Vaccine Hesitancy. Published in the British Medical Journal just in October. Now, what that has seen is a link between online disinformation campaigns and a decline in vaccination. Stephen Wilson, the professor at Brandeis, says, my fear regarding the impact of disinformation on social media in the context of COVID-19 is that it will increase the number of individual individuals Who are hesitant about getting a vaccine, even if their fears have no scientific basis. So this was a report called Social Media and Hesitancy. So the Cambridge University has in the UK was just referencing an international study that led to them creating this game, which I've just tried, called goviralgame.com. And it finds that people who rate the coronavirus conspiracy theories as more reliable are much less likely to say they'll get vaccinated. So in other words, if you believe in the conspiracy theories, then of course you're less likely to want to get vaccinated. What this translates into, for example, when they did these international surveys of people— so the conspiracy deemed most valid across the board was of course the one by President Trump that COVID-19 was engineered in a Wuhan laboratory. Now between 22 and 23% of respondents in the UK and the US rated this assertion that it's a Wuhan virus as reliable. In Ireland that number rose to 26%. In Mexico and Spain jumped to 33 and 37%. So Spain, remember, a first world country with good media, good education, 37% of people believed that the COVID-19 was engineered in a Wuhan laboratory. In fact, even just here in the neighborhood, one of my neighbors also felt that the COVID had been engineered by the Chinese as a way to get back at the West. So we have this amazing belief then that somehow we've got this conspiracy taking place, and those people then are less likely to want to take the vaccine. Now, the— this team at Cambridge University called the Social Decision-Making Lab launched a project with the UK Cabinet Office called Go Viral, and it's an online game that helps inoculate players, they say, against fake news by lifting the lid on common misinformation. Information techniques. I was quite interested in this because I've been using a website called ShareThroughThis, which is helping me to manage my headlines. And it has a number of ways that it says you can increase the popularity or the likely pickup with your headline. Includes putting names of famous people in it. It includes creating a sense of urgency. And it says include the words like fear, panic, hurry, speed and so on, uh, in your headline, and also to put people's body parts in some way— eyes, heads, legs, any that you like. So the, um, this new program that's online at Go Viral Game, I was fascinated to see because I've just been seeing in firsthand terms how my own headlines can be impacted by changing the words in the headlines. So the study that was published this week in the Royal Society Open Science publication says that certain misinformation claims are consistently seen as reliable by substantial sections of the public. This is Dr. Sander van der Leyden, the co-author and the director of the Cambridge Social Decision-Making Lab. They continue to say, we find a clear link between believing coronavirus conspiracies and hesitancy around future vaccine. So this, um, Social Decision-Making Lab has created a center on the internet where you can look at a correlation between your certain beliefs and your demographic categories and the perceived reliability of misinformation. Now it says scoring highly on a series of numeracy tasks given as part of the study, as well as declaring high levels of trust in scientists, are significantly and consistently associated with low levels of susceptibility to false information across nations. Now, the lead author and postdoctoral fellow in Cambridge Department of Psychology, Dr. John Rozenbeek, says numeracy skills are the most important, most significant predictor Of resistance to misinformation that we found. They continue to say we all now deal with a deluge of statistics and R number interpretations. The fostering of numerical skills for sifting through online information could well be vital for curbing the infodemic and promoting good health behavior. Now you can challenge yourself at goviralgame.com. I've taken it. It's in English, and I think has other languages. Took me, uh, 8 minutes to complete all 3 sections. But basically what it's saying is, under emotion, it says, uh, that using emotionally charged words provokes outrage. So when I was going through the different options, I was asked to post into a fictional group, uh, into a fictional group, sort of fairly negative comments about other people in the group And with that, I got more likes. And then I eventually became the administrator for the group and actually then linked some video where I was tagged in a video of some demonstrators being taken away, having claimed that Big Pharma is responsible for problems with 5G, the rollout for— this is telecommunications. So no link at all between Big Pharma and telecommunications, but it made the connection and then it added video. And all of a sudden it became viral. So under the Go Viral Game description at the end, uh, where I went through and my rating was in the top 24%, which means that I'm less likely to be taking conspiracy theories into account. I'm in the top 24%, so I guess that means I'm one of the least gullible of the 76% of people are more gullible than I am, apparently. So using emotionally charged words provokes outrage, it says. Rather than reacting immediately, be cautious and critical when emotionally charged words are used in the content that you see. So it's kind of a recommendation under fake expert, because in the questions it asked me to identify with a piece of information that had an expert and information that did not have an expert, and to give my view on which one was more important. So it says a lie can appear more reliable when sources back it up, even if that source doesn't exist, isn't credible, or was misquoted. It's easy to be blinded by fancy degrees and medical terminology. Be sure to check the credibility of the source. The final part says conspiracy. In times of uncertainty, such as during the pandemic, it's tempting to look for sinister motive or hidden cause behind what's going on. Now it's healthy to be skeptical, it says, but in real life many things can't be reduced to a simple cause. So the Go Viral game is a fascinating illustration of our own interpretation of information on posts, our own perception of when information is given by people that are in positions of authority, and our own engagement with posts that have negative content. Encourage you to check that out. Now, as the virus vaccine is being rolled out, it's interesting to see obviously in some countries people have not wanted to wear masks, and now of course we're going to see some people not wanting to take the vaccine. Listen to the radio this morning. The irony of the conversation was that the medical problem has been solved, but now it's the psychological issue. That needs to be solved, that people have believed the conspiracy theories to such a great degree using the infodemic on social media that they no longer actually want to take what's good for them. So there we are, there's some irony in that. So social media has become this amazing channel for sharing kind of instantly what's been going on about COVID and instantly the great news that there's a vaccine. And now the challenge for governments worldwide and companies and groups like AstraZeneca and Pfizer, or like the WHO, is now to convince people that the vaccines are safe. And a bit like in the old Jaws movie, that it's going to be safe to go back in the water. So I hope you find this useful, and I certainly found playing the game good fun. I recommend it to you. So whatever you read, check it for facts, look at the rationale, and don't get involved in things that are negative, because although it'll boost the likes and the reposts, it may be not done in fact by real people but by bots that are whipping up a frenzy. So thank you for Listening to this episode of Speak PR. My name is Jim James. If you like this, do please subscribe, pass it to a friend. If you'd like to come to our website eastwestpr.com, we have a weekly newsletter you can sign up for. Or if you're interested in talk with me about public relations and consultancy, I also have a mastermind at speakpr.co. So until we come together again, I wish you the best of health. a profitable business, and that if you're going online, just check in and make sure that you're not being fed a conspiracy.