​3 in 5 people receive false information about COVID-19 on social media: Survey

CNA, 21 May, 10pm (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NjIoDrmFpxI)

Three in five people receive false information about COVID-19. But only seven in 50 would share the information most or all of the time. These are the preliminary findings of a study by the National Centre for Infectious Diseases (NCID), which will pave the way for better decision-making in countering the pandemic. It will also help us develop greater preparedness for the future. Prof May O. Lwin from NTU’s Wee Kim Wee School of Communication and Information said: “We found that on platforms like WhatsApp, people feel that they are in much smaller groups, where you feel very comfortable and you might not need to vet your information as much. Amongst younger people, there is a greater propensity to share the information, and sometimes take information, add their components to it, and then further share that information. And by the time it’s shared 10,000 times, it’s usually in different types of shape and scope.”