Combating the Disinfodemic: Working for truth in the time of COVID-19
Course author
UNESCO
UNESCO is working to harness AI for sustainable development across education, the sciences, culture, communication and information, leading reflections around pressing concerns related to the rapid development of AI, from a Human Rights and ethics perspective in line with its global mandate.
Course overview
A disinfodemic refers to the overabundance of wrong information about the pandemic, or the ‘viral load’ of disinformation that undermines the public health response to COVID-19. This leads to the poor observance of public health measures, which has endangered countries' ability to stop the pandemic. From the author:“COVID-19 has led to a parallel pandemic of disinformation that directly impacts lives and livelihoods around the world. Falsehoods and misinformation have proven deadly and sowed confusion about life-saving personal and policy choices. To #ShareKnowledge, UNESCO and UNITAR have collaborated to bring to mobile e-learning two UNESCO policy briefs offering critical insights into the fast-growing COVID-19-related disinformation that is impeding access to trustworthy sources and reliable information. This research, in line with UNESCO’s role as a laboratory of ideas, coins the term disinfodemic to describe the problem. This interactive course is a collaboration between the UNES
The full course includes
- Introduction to Combating the Disinfodemic
- Main Disinfodemic Types
- Key Themes of the Disinfodemic
- Identifying Disinformation
- Producers and Distributors
- Production and Distribution
- Supporting the Disinformation Target Audiences
- Options for Action
- Acknowledgements