In response to the increasing spread of misinformation regarding the COVID-19 pandemic, UC Berkeley hosted a virtual panel of experts who spoke about how misinformation impacts people’s responses to the pandemic, as well as potential ways to combat this misinformation. The event was held Dec. 8 and included various campus professors and a former campus research fellow. According to Deirdre Mulligan, a professor at the UC Berkeley School of Information, as the amount of information available about COVID-19 increases, there are bound to be inaccuracies that further polarize the United States. “The social media companies had created the ingredients for the COVID misinformation and conspiratorial landscape we’re dealing with today,” said Hany Farid, a UC Berkeley School of Information and electrical engineering and computer sciences professor, during the event. “Our online information landscape is just a mess, and we need to start to get a handle on it.”