In order to stop the spread of misinformation through social networks and digital media about the pandemic of COVID-19 and vaccines, Stanford University organized the conference "Infodemic", where various specialists contributed knowledge to an issue that affects everyone.
Organized by the Center for Ethics, Society and Technology, the Department of Emergency Medicine and Stanford Introductory Seminars, "Infodemic" focused on the use of social media and other digital platforms to misinform the public on a variety of social and political issues surrounding COVID-19.
Experts in the fields of biomedical ethics, public health and cyber policy with representatives from social media companies, popular blog sites and the general public shared an interesting perspective on the pandemic of misinformation about COVID-19 circulating in the virtual world.
The conference addressed an ethical mandate to address misinformation, best practices for conducting a social media safety campaign, increased public confidence in vaccine safety, and a prioritized research agenda to sustain future work on this topic.
During the session "Introduction and Update on COVID-19," Dr. Yvonne Maldonado, Professor and Chair of Pediatric Infectious Diseases at Stanford University School of Medicine, emphasized public health support to increase society's trust in the health care system and prevent people from turning to digital channels that do not provide adequate or accurate information about the pandemic.
"I firmly believe that we need to support public health to instil confidence in our own health systems. Whether the approaches are appropriate may depend on the constraints faced by our public health colleagues and that is just where we fill the gaps," he said.
Today, there are still people who still doubt the disease or the importance of using the vaccine to stop the global spread of the disease.
Given this, experts agreed that the most used channels for disinformation are social networks and messaging platforms like Whatsapp and Telegram.
However, it is through social networks such as Twitter and Facebook that more and more experts and doctors have found spaces to disseminate updated and accurate information that the public can share more easily and in a dynamic way.
Through sessions held from 9:00 am to 3:00 pm, experts called on health professionals, media, influencers and the general public to communicate and disseminate verified information.
You may be interested in: FDA approves Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine against VOCsID-19
