25000000 people have now tested positive for covert 19 of the welt but Health Officials are also battling against online conspiracy theory. And untested so how do we fight a pandemic of misinformation this story. Hello and welcome to this special edition of inside story in collaboration with the doha forum and unesco. All the Coronavirus Fund demick has forced all of us to take a step back from our daily routines we now spend more time at home working remotely and relying on the internet for the latest updates on the virus but theres also been an unprecedented rise in misinformation online and on social media platforms everything from miracle cures the origins of the virus and even the existence of the virus have been questions conspiracy theories have even led to injuries and deaths people believe false and dangerous traumas posing as medical advice and discrimination stigmatisation racism and hate speech have also increased because of these campaigns so how do we fight this and is some of the misinformation being put out deliberately when i guess in just a moment but before we introduce our panel lets hear from the head of the World Health Organization whose agency has created an entire department dedicated to fighting against misinformation this is what dr ted said about the issue earlier this year. Just. Well find i mean for them. Fake news spreads faster and more easily than this bias and is just as dangerous thats why were also working with search and Media Companies like Facebook Google pin interest 10 cent. Talk you tube and others to counter the spread of rumors and mis information we call on all governments companies and news organizations toward with us to sound the appropriate level of violence without finding the flames of hysteria. And the head of the un secretary general antonio terrace has spoken of the need to urgently promote scientific and Accurate Information around the world people are scared they want to know what to do and where to turn for advice this is a time for science and solidarity yet the Global Museum for them is spreading Harmful Health advice and snake Oil Solutions are proliferating false words are fueling the airwaves wide conspiracy theories are infecting the internet hatred is going viral stigmatizing and vilifying people and groups the world must unite against this disease to and the vaccine is trusts 1st trusting science. Well lets take a closer look at the types of false information not there is of course dis information which is often spread intentionally for a variety of reasons while mis information is generally said innocently despite being incorrect a new study by the american journal of tropical medicine and hygiene says false information led to the deaths of 800 people globally and the admission of nearly 6000 patients to hospitals in the 1st 3 months of this year many of those incidents involved socalled miracle cure as such as drinking methanol or alcohol based cleaning products as a result of false information they have also been numerous reports of untie asian racism on the streets of australia india and the United Kingdom and a u. S. Based Advocacy Group has recorded more than 1100 cases of house meant and attacks there. With well lets now bring in our guests in paris we have guy bears a whos director of freedom of expression and Media Development at unesco and here in doha dr abdul rahim dean of the college of Health Sciences at Qatar University a warm welcome to you both welcome to inside story so mr guy version in paris that me start with you Bad Information whether its produced intentionally or otherwise has always existed what is unique about the way misinformation works now during this covert crisis and what have been some of its impacts right well i work for unesco and we discuss part of the u. N. Which is very much a vote is dependent gendelman species so we approach this question. And for us the program is not freedom of expression. The problem for freedom of expression is this information because this information to gary. Is false and misleading content with a penchant to be on full this context its 1st amplified by Internet Companies that make money from this kind of content and 2nd of all. This information can only exist if in fact tax freedom of expression because freedom of expression and journalism is what exposes this information in the agendas behind this information and so the issue is not that freedom of expression causes this information or freedom of expression is the problem actually freedom of expression for you know its part of the solution to this information right weve only talk about the solutions lets talk about the causes explain to us why some of this Bad Information this information in this case is being put out deliberately by whom and to what end sky vision well you mentioned earlier that this information misinformation and of course a lot of misinformation begins and disinformation so for example somebodys trying to have a financial scam to trick people to come in and out of their money maybe use this information to say im my americal it will save you from covert. That is their motivation that message can then be circulated by people who think its true and just want to circulate for reasons so youve got interesting interplay between this information that starts with bad intent and then it is distributed with instant intent and so the people who distribute this information are not always the same as those who create it and those who created can a financial reason political reasons geo political reasons it logical reasons they may also be very well organized and there may well be paid to do this so that trying to. Prepared to put a lot of money for particular reasons and she creating the confusion and the polarization that hand in hand with this Information Dr abdul rahim let me bring you into the conversation not youre a Public Health expert do you think the info demick has made the pandemic worse what are some of the Health Outcomes youve observed resulting from disintegration when it comes to the coronavirus pandemic. Right. You know in your report you talked about a number of components of misinformation more disinformation so things like stigma or conspiracy theories or even a false information and signals actually very concerning because it has a number of effect on the number of levels right so it has an effect on people who might have the buyers or have the disease and of course other than being. A very negative influence on their Mental Health it also has a very counterproductive effect in terms of what were trying to do in a Public Health response and that is it drives people away from the Health System from seeking care from getting treatment from getting good advice rather than directing people towards it because of course people are very concerned about being mistreated or labeled or stigmatized at the same time the people who find themselves in the other groups of people who are not labeled or stigmatized might have a false sense of security and we saw that for example and in other diseases so we saw that with hiv aids where the idea was if youre not gay then you dont have to worry about each id aids and we know thats not true so its all over people to not take precautions or not to take proper actions because they dont think that they are part of the group that is so stigma can be. Very very damaging. I was going to ask you do you have another specific example about what makes misinformation about corona virus so potent and do you think its gotten worse as a crisis has evolved or is it getting slightly better now. Well i think the thing is that there is so much that is yet unknown and so as long as there is sometimes a vacuum of information or information that is still evolving thats going to give groups for our mis information and for it this information and the thing is. I think what what we have to become more comfortable with is communicating uncertainty and saying that we are concerned and i know thats very very uncomfortable because people really like to wait and by people i mean you know organizations and so on they like to wait until they knew all the back and until their very ship well what that does is a couple of things one it creates a vacuum which can quickly be filled with misinformation and disinformation and the other is that you know that the science is emerging and being you know were finding out new things so it is ok to bring the public along on this journey and to say this is the best information that we have now but we know that it can change because what happens is when you know guidelines that change that for example about face knots or something and the public hasnt really been taken along on this journey to them it just seems like an about turn that is very very subtle and not that its you know been a shadow on the credibility of organizations and so its its not likely to get better in my opinion as long as there is so much that we still need to know and to communicate you talked about credit credibility and trust dr abdul rahim in the u. S. Weve seen President Donald Trump leading the coronavirus briefings often even contradicting his own Health Experts like Dr Anthony Fauci whose responsibility should it be in your opinion to ensure that the public gets the right information about the spine demick. Well i mean its not one persons responsibility its everyones responsibility and part of the problem of misinformation and disinformation is that it erodes credibility of the institution longer lived on and trusted and undermines trust in them so thats really problematic but i think the interesting thing about press is in this to touche and its its the kind of credit in the bank that you want to have before you have a crisis like this where you need to. You know to get the publics cooperation and to get the Publics Trust and compliance and so on so you dont start making money when you need money to start making money and saving it in the bank for when he needed so thats why we saw you know across the world whether its in the u. S. Or other places you know when when there is a problem with trust in the government it only gets worse and time i think and you needed to have established that that credibility beforehand so i think you know what comes to mind for example is. International survey that was done on the ground in barrus it was done by a number of universities Harvard Cambridge and so on and you know all the data online and talks about trust and government and right trust and the governments response and in some places to distrust is high is 80 percent right and when you look at those countries just not something that happened overnight with with the epidemic but it certainly probably was exacerbated by the right and i guess also the fact that you have sometimes perhaps leaders and politicians casting doubt on the information provided by scientists doesnt help i guess the scientists establish and gain trust from the public ill come back to that in just a moment let me let me just bring back guy beijing into the conversation guy you talked about the bad actors and there are plenty of them of course who want to exploit this crisis for economic and even play. Medical gain but what are the main causes of misinformation that we should be most worried about is it you know the tide coming from political operatives or perhaps social media algorithms unregulated media which of those is the most harmful in your opinion well its a combination of the about but certainly the key moment in the whole process is not the fact that there are aids bad actors. Its not fact there are naive people the main and the new thing is that the transmission between these is under the control of big Internet Companies that need people say are not doing enough to really. Stop promoting this kind of information in many cases its not even a situation that. They allow it to exist on their own tax forms but actually they are amplifying and recommending it because they all grew thems realize that this is the kind of content that attracts interest and the companys stock any company they want to take money and whatever is going to attract people that dont mind it will just use that content allow that content to go there because it generates more eyeballs watching and they can solve that attention to advertisers right so this is really the social Media Company in the chain yet some of these social Media Companies have been making changes and as weve seen with facebook and twitter labeling a misleading tweets Online Platform certainly are the main tools for this information and consumer hoaxes but can they alone be blamed. Well theyre laying less because theyre the said they are the rhythms are really the engine by which this information is being amplified and it is being exploited so there are 2 dimensions one is they have the employer they have the algorithms that do this and 2 people know how to use those outcomes so they have some blame and they arent really thats thats a good point ever there transparency still leaves a lot to be desired so example they sometimes will tell you how much information they are labeled a mistress information theyve labeled even stuff that taken off sites but they release this information when they want to they dont provide an ongoing activist so people can see you can see one out why have you that this information this this information before it was actually labeled taken down book well theyre actually take a step forward and a look at those people who have seen it that indeed it was inAccurate Information so theres a huge amount more that companies can do even if theyre not their original access not the upstream people they are the stream by which the stuff is being spread talk to one another i am as guy mentioned despite social Media Companies removing or labeling information about misleading information about vaccines for example you know a lot of people still believe that you know bill gates for instance wants to use a Coronavirus Vaccine to implant microchips in people do you see the achievement of an effective vaccine being undermined by by this type of information and what more do you think social Media Companies should be doing. The misinformation and the dissent from ations surrounded by scenes can be very very harmful because right now you have a number of companies that are racing to come up with a vaccine but there is always another component to that which is peoples willingness to take the backseat and that has to be someone affected by what theyre seeing on social media and also offline and i think we have to we have to you know to make sure that we make the point that misinformation and disinformation i mean yes is being. Transported to a lot faster with social media but it can also happen offline as well athens in a lot of spaces and that is likely to unfortunately if its not countered to influence peoples readiness to scenes guy big your you all thoughts about what could be the most effective ways in fighting misinformation and disinformation you know even for us says jen this reporting on this pandemic has been extremely challenging because of misinformation as weve seen is not just coming from citizen citizens but also in some cases from governments and even journalists and theres a war of narratives being waged by great powers how do we counter this what sort of approach is needed. Well i dont mean that credibility is the key here and if youre going to counter this you need you each have credible information as i said your biggest. And in an adverse reaction because its not just fairly i get people ignorant theres a really we have been planted in peoples minds so you have to kill those weeds before you could really successfully plants that knowledge now and i think thats what scientists the media and guns have a key role to play here. Continually let me start with the governments because 1st of all governments need to allow our mediocre to be free and independent so that they can actually pull their credibility and tell the story and to many governments who are still jumpy get especially when the public needs critical Media Outlets them and when you have a controlled media system where people dont believe that. At the same time governments need to do is open up their own Information Holdings a lot more governments need to be far more transparent with the statistics about infections for example but i think its about tests and more transparent about the contracts contacts that they are getting to counter code that these emergency conditions dr abdul rahim i what i do want to get your thoughts on the issue of free speech how can we stop on full information without harming free speech i dont think free speech is freedom to put out misinformation so again i think by teaching people to be to educating people to be. Aware are consumers and to be able to assess claims then if someone uses their prints or misuses their freedom of speech to put forward information that can be harmful i think they should be hauled out on it and i think they should be held accountable for it as well i think thats really important because. It does end up causing a lot of harm i just point out something on the on the issue of media and i certainly agree with what dr berger just said and i want to say that in our part of the world i think one area that theres a lot of strengthening and weve seen its effect in other places and not necessarily here in the science journals i mean there have been some just just like there been some you know really low quality. Articles written and misinformation that is spread more sensational my station theres also been some very very good science journalism that weve seen in the pandemic and yes they are actually and some of the big papers but really good investigative science journalism not areas that i would really like to see develop in our part of the world because thats really thats really a guy this is where you can take the information. From research and not just simply lie to the public thats not really the purpose you want to express it in its nuances but in a way that is more public friendly without necessary you know without losing the nuance of it and i think there are people who are trying to do that and weve been able to really you negate some pretty complicated issues about immunity and about how scenes work and some of them have done a really good job with that and i think the more because like like dr berger said media is much more out there theyre much more people many more people consuming media than they are scientific literature so if you can make that connection i think that would be very helpful and countering mizzen nation right guys or shame paris ill give you the last word and hopefully well leave this on a hopeful note are you hopeful that the fight against misinformation this information fake news can can be won. Well its at the stage its a tough call because theres a huge amount of damage there casualties that the real casualties the cattle teams also to the social fabric to the ability of science not just an alphabet the range of issues climate being one of the so its tough but i am optimistic that it will in the end prevail because if humanity are guided by truth then humanity will make any progress and even those who want to see this information out there will have an interest in telling lies or spreading information that they not even sure its d true i think that even they will come to reality at the end of the day weve got to have some reliable information in order to navigate our way through humanitys collective challenges and indeed have a crisis that is exactly one of those chapters that faces everybody everywhere well ill leave it there thank you very much for a very interesting discussion a guy best in paris and dr anon abdurrahim here in doha and thank you for watching thank you to the doha forum any nescafe again for collaborating with us on this special edition of inside story you can wash his program again any time by this getting our website at aljazeera dot com for further discussion go to our Facebook Page at facebook dot com for sasha a. 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Im fully back to bill in doha with a look at our main stories on aljazeera french president Emmanuel Cole says lebanon must form a new government quickly to get out of his for lyrical and economic crisis is making his 2nd visit to the country since a devastating explosion at beirut sport on august 4th. Was named as lebanons new Prime Minister hours before Michael Holmes arrival as in a harder has more from beirut. A 2nd visit in less than a month mccall really projecting influence and power the political message. We are the main up