Health Misinformation Report released
As misinformation about health has become viral, city-based Factly has come out with a Health Misinformation Report and has also hosted a podcast called Un-Viral that aims to set doubts at rest.
“We were part of the Global Health Fellowship program by Facebook. As part of the programme we did a ‘Health Misinformation report’, the first of its kind that maps the health misinformation landscape in India. We also launched a dedicated health misinformation podcast ‘Un-Viral’,” informs Rakesh Reddy Dubbudu of Factly. The information was also hosted on the site. The false news on camphor as a cure for COVID-19 have particularly been widely read implying that people are seeking avenues for accurate information and more so in case of health-related misinformation, says Mr. Reddy.
Other fact-checking organisations that did similar work as Factly are based out of Indonesia, Philippines, Colombia, South Africa, Turkey, Italy and the United Kingdom. Each of these 10 organisations that was part of the Facebook’s fact-checking program brought in a new team member (Health Fellow) to help them approach the complex and important topic of health misinformation especially in the context of COVID-19.
In the preface to the Health Misinformation Report, well-known microbiologist Gagandeep Kang wrote: “The value of this effort undertaken by the Factly-Facebook Health Fellow to create a landscape, provide accurate information and obtain inputs from experts cannot be overstated.”
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