Three Scams: Disinformation in an age of Coronavirus

Disinformation, false information spread deliberately to deceive, is often propagated with social media and technology, wreaks havoc in many societies. Whether it is stealing election wins away from expectant candidates with stories about pizza-paedophile rings, spreading Whatsapp wildfires, or pressuring teenage girls into buying detox tea through ‘influencers,’ it plagues many. But it feels inherently different in a pandemic and against a backdrop of global anxiety. 

Coronavirus, or COVID-19, has seen an abundance of related disinformation.  Regardless how outlandish the claims are, we see them from our social media feeds and in the news.  Those who start false stories have the intention to reach as many people as possible. This is clear from the click bait headlines and way in which they are written.

Putting the intent to spread as far as possible to one side, there are three different aims for people to start sharing disinformation.    In this article, we can explore these aims through the most widely known ‘fake news’ stories, but it’s also important to remember that there are thousands of stories that never were picked up by social media algorithms and therefore, never the same gained traction.

Source: Gustavo Fring 

Push a narrative

Many of you may have seen stories circulating about how the expansion of 5G has been part of a bigger plan of the Chinese government to spread Coronavirus and destabalise the West. This started on the 22nd January 2020, when a Belgian newspaper Het Laatste Nieuws published an interview with Dr. Kris Van Kerckhoven. He claimed that “5G is life-threatening, and no one knows it.” One scientifically-baseless claim in this article, published in a regional version of the paper’s print edition and since deleted from its website, sparked a conspiracy theory firestorm. Van Kerckhoven didn’t just claim that 5G was dangerous, but he had also said it might be linked to COVID-19.

Fast-forward to two months later and these rumours had torn into the real world.  Not only has this story become a staple of social media feeds, if you search Coronavirus 5G on youtube, you’ll be bombarded with obscure online talk show hosts and video bloggers who have started to uncover the truth.   It’s easy to scoff at these claims, or say that only idiots would believe them, but after a spate of 5G masts were vandalised and set on fire in the UK, it has become a story of concern to many.

A question remains about why start or push this story in the first place.  Those who start these stories do it to push a narrative and in this case, it is a narrative about global tensions – that it’s China versus the West and we can ultimately not trust them or trade with them.  This is exacerbated by the existing concerns surrounding new technology, including phone masts, and their limited trustworthiness.

Financial gain

We all want to protect our own health and often, we are willing to spend money readily to ensure that we can gain access to products that help us to protect ourselves.  Unfortunately, there are many people who are happy to exploit people’s fears and allow them to buy faulty products, services that do not deliver, or just scam them outright. 

Last week, the Guardian revealed that a West Yorkshire GP had been selling antibody tests to the public in an apparent breach of UK law, after they an anonymous Facebook page offering COVID-19 antibody testing kits for £49.99 each (and saying it was raising funds to donate to the UK NHS) was linked to a website administered by a family doctor in Bradford. At the same time, the UK government laboratories have been evaluating antibody test kits, but have yet to find one that works. 

But this is not the only product you can buy online – ventilators, drug cures and personal protective equipment are all among a growing group of health products that people can purchase for a tidy sum, regardless of evidence whether it works or not.

Exploiting people’s fears with disinformation for financial gain is nothing new – we have seen it time and time again with ludicrous weight loss claims, pyramid schemes targeted at low earners, and snake oil salesmen.  Wherever there is anxiety, there will always be someone offering an elixir and in a pandemic, this no less true. 

Source: Daria Shevtsova

Incite mass panic

In February this year, there were rumours in Hong Kong that China was making more face masks and less toilet roll due to the outbreak of COVID-19, as these two items were made of the same raw materials.  Soon this claim, which became widely circulated on WhatApp, evolved and now China would stop its export of toilet paper to Hong Kong altogether. Despite the Hong Kong government’s efforts to reassure citizens that it was fake news, these items had already started flying off the shelves.

No sooner had people started panic buying toilet roll in Hong Kong, had people begun doing the same in Singapore, Australia, and Europe.  There were reports of people buying ten packs of loo rolls at once, outright physical fights in Australia and the hysteria seemed only to grow.  After a lorry carrying toilet paper had caught fire, amidst Australia’s coronavirus-induced buying frenzy, authorities and supermarkets were keen to stress that there was no need to stockpile, but this message couldn’t cut through.

A psychological theory suggests that stockpiling gives people a sense of control during a public health crisis where they are, for the most part, helpless.  Those who start spreading disinformation about shortages of food or house products, feed into this fear and soon, a  mass panic forms. It’s easy to point the finger and call those who fall for these stories ‘Covidiots,’ but people tend to react to panic differently and it’s important to remember when someone does feel anxious or panicked, they often find it harder to listen to their rational thoughts, as they crave that sense of control.  

It is hard to understand why someone might want to start false news stories and ultimately stir up panic, or in the most extreme examples, hatred, in a time of Coronavirus.  It could well be for their own personal gratification or humour, but as it is often hard to find the source of those who write these stories, we will probably not know. What is certain, is that the vast majority of people make no gains or in the long term, feel better from disinformation.  This is true at all times, but currently, in a time of extremes and survival of COVID-19, it is amplified.