It is very likely that, in the last few hours, someone sent you an alarmist message via mobile phone. Between 19.30 on March 12 and 00.00 on the 13th, ISCTE’s MediaLab received 179 examples on the first day of its campaign to identify the disinformation associated with covid-19 on WhatsApp.
In this false information, mainly circulated through audio files, three types of false news stand out, which aim to create an increased social alarm. Examples of these lies: there are already several deaths that are being “covered up” by the authorities; quarantine will be decreed from March 13th, 14th or 15th across the country, with the closure of commercial establishments and the absence of supplies; the authorities are aware of a much larger number of infected people than was released to the press. All of these messages are proven to be false.
MediaLab explains that “these false narratives are mostly validated by introducing prominent figures in Portuguese society as sources of information unknown to the public: doctors, officials or hospital officials; children of political figures, television or leaders of major companies.”
Two voice messages, from an alleged Portuguese doctor, are circulating through various groups created on WhatsApp, and are quickly replicated by the people who hear them. In these sound files, the voice guarantees that “the state of alarm is huge” and describes several deaths (which did not happen, as confirmed by official sources). “Today, a man died at Curry Cabral”, he guarantees. Later, he adds a new case: “Yesterday a man died on the South Bank.” The conclusion of one of the messages is this: “My alarmism comes from what is going on, from watching people die.”
Among the data we collect are hundreds of messages that are being analyzed by the MediaLab team, by the DN and by a set of volunteers who made themselves available to be part of this work.
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Anyone who hears this message may have doubts. Is there any information that is being hidden? Therefore, these testimonies from an alleged doctor who claims to have dealt with several deaths have spread quickly, at least since Wednesday.
And that must be the starting point for the necessary skepticism of those who receive messages like these: if on Wednesday they had died in Portugal with covid-19, this information could not be hidden. Families and hospital services would necessarily know. That is, no matter how much there was a “conspiratorial” attempt to silence this information, it would be ineffective three days later.
Therefore, the best defense we all have, in a health crisis like this, is the choice we make of information. Among the data we collected are hundreds of such messages, which were distributed and are being analyzed by the MediaLab team, by the DN and by a set of volunteers who made themselves available to be part of this work, given the volume of the misinformation detected. Some want to convince us that the crisis was made for economic reasons, others just want to start the panic. None of this is new. In Italy, exactly the same thing happened.
That’s why we propose three suggestions so that these fear campaigns on social networks do not catch anyone off guard.
1 – Be wary
Even if the voice recording, or any “testimony”, that arrived on your cell phone seems genuine (the voice, the intonation, the terms you use), and what you say seems serious, there are always several questions that we must ask. How do I know that person is, in fact, a doctor? How can I confirm that that is true? If you are unable to answer any of these questions, be wary. Whenever you hear, in one of those messages, that “the information is not passing” because they are censoring the bad news, doubt it. The bad news is usually quick, whatever the desire of those who want to censor it.
2 – Look for official sources, never anonymous
In a public health case, we cannot trust people we don’t know and who we will never be able to identify. If someone tells us, in a WhatsApp voice message, that he can cure covid-19 with any product that that person invented, we will not risk our lives in this experience. The same care must be taken with other messages of this type. There are dozens of officially identifiable sources (such as WHO, DGS, hospitals), information sources (newspapers, TV, radio and informational sites where journalists work) or academics.
3 – Do not feed the “machine” of lies
Worry and anxiety are natural during a health crisis, which forces millions of people around the world to limit their social contacts and movements. But feeding a hidden network of lie makers (whether for fun, political or financial interest) does not help anyone. Replicating these alarmist and false messages has no other effect than to trigger panic and feed fear. This is what creates even bigger and very real problems: food shortages in supermarkets, lack of alcohol in pharmacies … If you don’t send this message to anyone else, the chain will break.
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