Disinformation and COVID-19: Distancing from Social Media’s Attention Economy
On April 3, 2020, with COVID-19 cases ticking up in the United States, new guidance from the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) as well as the Trump administration encouraged Americans to wear face masks in public. Despite this guidance, however, President Donald Trump declared that “this is voluntary,” telling reporters, “I don’t think I’m going to be doing it,” according to The Guardian’s coverage of the day’s new guidelines. Many Americans, looking to the leadership of President Trump, heeded his recommendation over that of his administration and the CDC. Having the power to dictate the public opinion toward this virus, Trump diluted CDC recommendations throughout the pandemic. In his advice, Trump chose rhetoric of false reassurance, and not of warning. Even as early as January 22, 2020, he proclaimed that the country had the virus completely under control and suggested that he was not concerned about a pandemic, with the goal of instilling confidence in the American people. Trump’s cover-ups fueled the debate about who and what to believe.
The conflicting recommendations on mask-wearing and safety precautions is founded on the debate over what to believe about COVID-19, and we’ve seen that this has left many Americans choosing a side to follow. Later incidents of Trump downplaying COVID-19 were met with continued opposition from medical and science professionals. As the World Health Organization (WHO) declared the outbreak to be a pandemic and advised health and safety protocols in response to rising case numbers, Trump preached the virus’s low risk.
Trump’s dangerous rhetoric disregarded the obvious truth of COVID-19’s impact. Amidst a national backdrop of closed businesses, quiet cities, canceled events, and virtuality as the only means for connection, COVID-19 has left a tangible impact on all Americans. Reported case numbers boomed in the early months, leaving thousands of Americans hospitalized and overwhelming the nation’s healthcare system. Hundreds of thousands of Americans watched loved ones succumb to moderate or severe symptoms. With over 750,000 reported deaths from COVID-19 in the United States, according to public health researchers, scientists, and medical professionals, COVID-19 has been real, widespread, and virulent.
Despite all this, most Trump supporters have opted to unequivocally believe the rhetoric being disseminated from their leader. As reported by Philip Bump in his Washington Post article, “For weeks, conservative media joined Trump in downplaying the threat of the coronavirus,” conservative radio host Rush Limbaugh was quoted as saying early on in the pandemic that “‘the coronavirus is the common cold, folks,’” asserting that the virus was a “Chinese bioweapon” (Bump). Not only was Trump asserting that COVID-19 posed little threat, but also the right-wing media echoed his sentiment, instilling fear in the American public that the pandemic was a targeted threat from the eastern hemisphere. Combined with conspiracy theories that vaccines contain microchips and that the “coronavirus outbreak could be linked to 5G cellphone towers installed near Wuhan in 2019,” as Rebecca Heilweil of Vox reported in her article, ”How the 5G coronavirus conspiracy theory went from fringe to mainstream,” the belief of an alternate reality as well as a distrust of medical science has perpetuated this narrative that is so opposite to that of established truths in the medical and science communities.
Now almost two years into the COVID-19 pandemic, skepticism toward the truth remains, especially because Americans are still divided on what to believe. Despite the fact that mask-wearing, social distancing, and vaccinations have been implemented across the country, those claiming that it is against their constitutional rights to wear a mask, as well as anti-vaxxer groups that are skeptical of “Big Pharma” and the contents of vaccines (a sizable portion of which are right-wing conservatives), exist in a reality separate from those working to slow the spread of the virus. Deciding which guidelines to trust in pursuit of the truth during global health crises like the COVID-19 pandemic is crucial in curbing the threat to public health, and when sifting through conflicting information in need of answers, it’s hard to sit on the fence.
Although placing blame on the media for spreading disinformation is partially valid, doing so absolves us as consumers from acknowledging what we’re consuming and how we’re consuming it. In the context of the current “infodemic” ___ defined by the World Health Organization as “too much information including false or misleading information in digital and physical environments during a disease outbreak” ___ we must more consciously consider the platforms on which we consume, as well as our consumption habits in general in order to eradicate our current infodemic and ultimately halt COVID-19’s spread for good.
With conspiracy theorists holding a substantial grip on what we may believe, the ability to spread falsehoods on online platforms represents how the internet amplifies any and all voices in the COVID-19 pandemic. Rebecca Heilweil of Vox writes about how the internet facilitates the fast spread of fake news, using the 5G coronavirus conspiracy as a prevalent example. She describes how in January 2020, a Belgian newspaper, Het Laatste Nieuws, interviewed a local doctor who claimed that the coronavirus outbreak may be related to newly-installed 5G cell phone towers in China’s Hubei province (where the city of Wuhan is located). She writes that “the article was taken down within hours, but the theory had already spread to English-language Facebook pages.” And with celebrities also believing the conspiracy, subsequently publicizing it with their massive online followings, it’s no surprise that disinformation spread so quickly. And Heilweil explains how these beliefs turned into action, as by early April 2020, conspiracy theorists were setting cell towers on fire in Europe and starting to intersect with other conspiracy-minded communities like anti-vaxxers, raising fears that the towers could pose a threat to public health.
It may seem like the only forces that can combat an outbreak of disinformation are the social networks themselves, but Heilweil is more skeptical, highlighting that “it remains unclear if the platforms where these ideas are spreading — Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube — can do anything to stop the madness.” And with the advertising revenue model for social media, in which any and all attention is profitable, the platforms may even benefit from the madness.
Despite the belief that the media, conspiracy theorists, and governmental administrations are responsible for the spread of disinformation, placing blame only on these sources overlooks how the consumption habits of social media users have a role to play in what we believe. Laura Hazard Owen analyzes consumer engagement with social media in her illuminating Nieman Lab article, “Why do people share misinformation about Covid-19? Partly because they’re distracted,” highlighting that “social media platforms provide immediate, quantified feedback on the level of approval from one’s social connections,” such as likes on Facebook or Instagram posts. She argues that as a result, “attention may by default be focused on other factors, such as concerns about social validation and reinforcement rather than accuracy.” We often think of this attention-driven model when discussing online publications, producing sensationalist headlines and embellished facts to drive readership in order to get more advertisement traffic. Although social media users are not selling ads, numerical attention in terms of likes compels people to pass on the disinformation they’ve learned. On a purely gratifying level, receiving high amounts of likes on posts that spread disinformation brings more satisfaction than sharing truthful posts. This attention economy highlights the danger that on social media, the truth is not the priority.
Transitioning to the consumption of social media, Owen describes that “news content is intermixed with content in which accuracy is not relevant (e.g., baby photos, animal videos),” and that as a result, “people may habituate to a lower level of accuracy consideration when in the social media context.” The very nature of social media’s structure, positioning serious news with more lighthearted content, is disastrous in the context of a global pandemic. During a time when the spread of correct information is the most crucial in ensuring saved lives, we are seemingly locked in a broken system of consumption: online platforms share inaccurate or false information, users aren’t concerned about accuracy, and when users further spread that disinformation, they are rewarded with likes and attention. Considering the online systems we inhabit on a daily basis is a necessary first step in how we approach disinformation.
Furthermore in times of distress, a demand for any information, any explanation, is high. In Erin McAweeney’s Medium article, “Who Benefits from Health Misinformation?”, she describes social media as “an information ecosystem full of panicked information-seekers,” and writes that these consumers “are more likely to consume problematic information at a faster rate and higher volume, rather than wait in uncertainty.” When guidance from established sources, like the office of the President or the CDC, are at odds, people crave an explanation, and it’s easy to stumble upon a sensationalist news source while scrolling through social media. We find solace in the information we consume, regardless of its credibility, because it’s better than being left in the dark. This online structure undermines our trust in health experts and institutions, and provides the grim prospect that “a public too fragmented to collectively trust health experts can’t hold an administration accountable for its lies.”
As we reflect on the course of the COVID-19 pandemic, being more aware of the online ecosystem responsible for how disinformation and conspiracies are spread, as well as rethinking our consumption habits will allow us to combat disinformation on our own terms. We simply cannot rely on government regulation or the social networks themselves to regulate the flow of disinformation, as anxieties surrounding freedom of speech and government regulation of private businesses filibuster their way to very little progress. It is crucial for us, the users, to self-regulate our habits, to collectively make disinformation fall flat with our inattention. We must not passively believe, but actively critique what we consume. A healthy skepticism toward the information we consume that comes with a heightened sense of media literacy may redefine our relationship to the internet’s attention economy. By devoting our attention to the sources that inform not just for attention’s sake, we can slow the infodemic, lessen the impact of the pandemic, and ensure that false versions of the truth don’t infect us all.
