The term “fake news” surged in popularity around 2016, notably championed by then-United States Presidential candidate Donald Trump. He popularised it and claimed credit for coining it, even stating that it was “one of the greatest of all terms” he had devised. This phrase became emblematic of the era of false information proliferating through media channels and online platforms. It found its acme with the advent of the COVID-19 pandemic. COVID-19 was the malicious offspring of negligence and institutional insufficiency. It highlighted the fragility of healthcare systems and modern economies. As the world scrambled to contain the contagion, political posturing, scientific scepticism, and conspiracy theories muddied the waters, exacerbating an already dire situation.
Shannon Stapleton/Reuters// Donald Trump accusing CNN of “fake news”
A (Dis)Infodemic?
Quite poetically, political analyst David Rothkopf coined the term "infodemic" during the 2002–2004 SARS outbreak in an article for the Washington Post. Rothkopf described it as a complex phenomenon stemming from a combination of mainstream media, specialist media, and internet platforms, all serving as conduits for a mix of fact, rumour, interpretation, and propaganda. [1]
Two decades later, the world again faced a SARS virus called SARS-CoV-2. While having a significantly lower fatality rate, SARS-CoV-2 affected many people with mild or no symptoms, meaning detecting, tracking the transmission and controlling the virus was much harder. Accompanying this novel virus was an infodemic in the age of unparalleled technological development and digital interconnectedness.
During the 2002–2004 SARS outbreak, the general public remained blissfully unaware of the outbreak until February 2003. However, information about COVID-19 went global within a few months. What took even less time was the further dissemination of disinformation into the public sphere. Claims of the virus being a “Chinese Bioweapon” and a “Big Pharma Plot” quickly reached every household and news channel. Because the coronavirus disease outbreak began in Wuhan, China, the pandemic saw a surge in anti-Asian language and behaviour.
Source: RFA
In India, North-Eastern Indians became victims of racial discrimination. They experienced stigmatisation and bullying and were also tagged as carriers of the coronavirus. Racial discrimination and othering had a significant toll on their emotional and mental health. The exacerbation of racial hatred amidst the pandemic manifested stereotypical attitudes among the mainstream population of India. A population lacking awareness of its diversity and susceptible to the slightest doses of outrage.
The World Health Organisation (WHO) and the United Nations (UN) recognised the use of the term “infodemic” early on in the pandemic. But it was UNESCO that more aptly popularised the term “disinfodemic”. While "infodemic" highlighted the excessive flow of information during the pandemic, "disinfodemic" referred to the malicious dissemination or distortion of the same information.
Lies, Damn Lies and Distrust
“A lie can travel halfway around the world while the truth is putting its shoes on.”
This is one of the most misattributed quotes in history and is most often credited to Mark Twain, the well-known American author and humorist. However, the first attribution to Mark Twain for the quote occurred nine years after his death! Other contenders included Thomas Jefferson in the 18th century and Winston Churchill in the 20th century. This serves as an authentic depiction of the quote's intended message.
In the discourse surrounding the dissemination of information, it's crucial to grasp the inherent deception often intertwined with it. Information frequently undergoes a metamorphosis, becoming veiled, misconstrued, or even blatantly distorted before reaching its intended audience. Three terms stand out within this dialogue: misinformation, disinformation, and malinformation.
Misinformation, while seemingly innocuous, wields considerable influence in public discourse despite its non-malicious intent. Misinformation is the non-intentional spread of false information, where individuals or groups involved harbour no ill will. However, dismissing this seemingly benign practice is a grave oversight. The very innocence of those disseminating misinformation catalyses its widespread proliferation.
Disinformation represents false information at its most insidious. It is proliferated by those seeking to maliciously disrupt public opinion or the formation thereof. It refers to false information intended to manipulate, cause damage, or guide people and organisations in the wrong direction. Today, individuals or groups espousing fascist ideologies wield it as a weapon, eager to manipulate narratives and sow discord within society.
Malinformation, the perceptively intellectual brother of the above two, involves false information stemming from the truth but often exaggerated in a way that misleads and potentially causes harm. A common form this practice takes is data deception. Data deception entails the misrepresentation and falsification of data. We often see this through misleading representations, selective reporting and the notorious act of "cherry-picking."
On Its Knees: Failing Institutions
The COVID-19 pandemic thrust public institutions into a battlefield of unforeseen challenges, leaving them reeling. To this day, some institutions continue to struggle to recover. The core idea that enables the functioning of said institutions is one thing: institutional trust. This serves as the cornerstone for their functioning, allowing policymakers and stakeholders to gauge public perceptions and confidence, and aiding in further improving these institutions. However, this well-oiled feedback mechanism was left hapless at the onset of the pandemic.
The pandemic's profound societal challenge ignited unprecedented, large-scale efforts as public authorities, civil society, and the scientific community had to combine their efforts. The governments of most affected countries implemented extreme policies for containment and mitigation. The widespread adoption of such policies during the pandemic raised important questions about what constitutes an undemocratic response to a crisis. While the institutions and practices of democracy during normal times are well established, democratic standards during emergencies have yet to be conceptualised.
Public institutions scrambled to respond to the worsening state of the pandemic day by day. The public felt curtailed of their freedoms, choices, and livelihoods. The West and the Third World saw the wrath of the derailment of “normal life”. Consequently, public confidence in political figures and public administration was greatly diminished.
Source: Altaf Qadri / AP// A COVID-19 patient receives oxygen inside
a car provided by a Gurdwara in New Delhi
At Its Most Vulnerable
A suffocating sense of panic permeated the globe. A ceaseless barrage of data, ever-changing precautionary rules, and ever-restrictive limitations blasted the common man. Frustration became disillusionment as citizens faced the incompetence and apathy of their governments. Harrowing scenes of failing hospitals, with patients hooked up to ventilators, served as grim reminders of the reality. With governments and health sectors on their back foot against this unprecedented calamity, malicious actors seized the chance to plant seeds of doubt and misinformation, using the uncertainty and fragility of the situation.
But who were these agents waging a war of misinformation?
While the general public's gullibility is complicit in the spread of false information, anti-establishment groups often initiate the initial transmission of disinformation on the internet, acting as superspreaders. These anti-establishment groups include conspiracy theorists, anarchists, and even members of organised crime. In the wake of the COVID-19 epidemic, we saw anti-vaxxers emerge as an important addition to this list.
However, the pandemic also highlighted the use of mainstream media for the propagation of falsehoods. Media outlets abused their platform by sensationalising unchecked information and panicking their audience. Furthermore, another concerning aspect was the exploitation of media by national governments. In many cases, the media served as a mouthpiece for governments, attempting to salvage their image and often engaging in data manipulation practices and disseminating false reports. A glaring example of this phenomenon was observed in India.
The Circus of Indian Media
News organisations are critical in bringing the government's attention to early outbreaks while also nudging the tired public, to adopt and sustain potentially burdensome nonpharmaceutical interventions (NPIs)[2], such as maintaining physical distance and hand hygiene, wearing a mask, etc. Unfortunately, on the eve of the second COVID-19 surge, COVID-19 conversation reached an all-time low across all media in India. [3]
In India, the government is the single largest advertiser, and with its corporate allies, can influence media organisations' revenues. Advertising spending has been growing at a healthy rate of 10–15%, with television leading the way, followed by print and digital platforms. The Press Council of India has warned before that ‘paid news’ has become pervasive, structured, and highly organised. [4]
The unquestioning replication of government remarks was a frequent feature in India's mainstream media coverage of COVID-19. Publications and news channels frequently gave excessive room and attention to pundits with no specific expertise and highlighted less relevant statistics. Most major media followed the government's directions to improve its image in managing the pandemic. Much of this was also because, when the pandemic struck India most media outlets lacked depth in health reporting as a speciality. Few had the knowledge or capacity to understand the flood of data.
Source: Francis Mascarenhas/REUTERS
On October 22, 2021, Prime Minister Narendra Modi addressed the country for the tenth time since the outbreak began. Hospitals, clinics, and health centres in India had administered over one billion doses of the COVID-19 vaccine by then and the Prime Minister chose to speak on this occasion. "A hundred crore vaccine jabs is not just a number," he proclaimed. "It is a reflection of the capacity of this country." The day before the announcement, television news channels broadcasted a live count up to the billion-dose threshold. The next morning, India's media ran bold headlines on the government's vaccine landmark.
Neither the Prime Minister's statement nor the media acknowledged the devastation caused by the second wave of COVID-19, which led to more than 250,000 documented deaths—a highly conservative estimate due to widespread undercounting. Nothing was said about the vaccine scarcity or the chaotic rollout that had marked the previous months. The "vaccine century" hype began when only slightly more than 20% of the population had been properly vaccinated, leaving the bulk of Indians exposed. [11]
A First World Problem?
Source: Stephanie Keith/Getty Images// Proud Boys march in Manhattan against vaccine mandates
The oldest democracy in the modern world saw COVID-19 become a highly charged and politicised phenomenon. The 2020 elections were fought on questions of global conspiracies and anti-establishment narratives. Right-wing extremist organisations that are underpinned by anti-establishment ideologies (such as the Proud Boys) used public uncertainty about COVID-19 vaccines to undermine trust in the US government and global institutions such as the United Nations. This was often accomplished by spreading incorrect and alarmist information about the vaccines' safety and effectiveness, as well as by portraying vaccines as symbols of excessive government control.
Conspiracy theories popular among right-wing extremist actors, such as the New World Order, the Great Reset, and QAnon, converged around a common mistrust in liberal democratic institutions and theories of an alleged malignant global actor pulling the strings, propped up by the complicity of governments.
Supporters of the Great Reset conspiracy, which was first promoted online by extreme-right influencers in 2020, believe that a World Economic Forum initiative called "The Great Reset" demonstrates how global elites are using the COVID-19 pandemic to dismantle the capitalist economy and impose radical social change at the expense of personal freedoms. Anti-vax conspiracy theories are linked to the "Great Reset" by the notion that the pandemic's main objective was to legitimise a vaccine that would be used to depopulate or control society.
The anti-vax movement also had considerable overlap with the QAnon conspiracy theory, which is popular among the American right and believes vaccination is part of a "deep state" effort to dominate humanity. Online anti-vax networks increasingly became radicalisation pipelines, helping to draw people into the QAnon movement.
The New World Order conspiracy theory is popular among far-right and anti-government militants. This theory claims that global elites are covertly planning to replace sovereign nation-states with a dictatorial "one-world" government that would control the world based on a global agenda. The claim that COVID-19 was a scam being used to initiate global control by forcing people to submit to repressive government measures (including vaccinations and lockdowns), ushered in the "New World Order".
State-sponsored Disinformation
Information is the oil of the 21st century and certainly a tool used to attack every aspect of our being. States spread disinformation for various reasons: to deflect civilian attention,
prevent domestic criticism and control the narrative. There is evidence of states spreading disinformation out of strategic and domestic motivations or in the context of superpower competition. China is accused of deceiving the globe to portray its fight against the coronavirus as a success story.
States use both overt and covert means to spread misinformation. Iranian officials, for example, openly accused the US of wanting to bolster the view that Iran's institutions were unable to cope with the virus. Taiwan accused China of spreading rumours about the cover-up of coronavirus cases in Taiwan. Senior officials in the US State Department claimed that Russia-linked social media accounts spread misinformation about the virus being a biological weapon used by Americans to harm the Chinese economy.[5]
Europe has also experienced an increase in the presence of authoritative and fascist elements within its democratic bubble. Viktor Orbán, a NATO and EU member, has constructed the largest centralised media empire in European Union history. Claiming that illegal migration was the main reason for the pandemic's beginning, the Hungarian government and media incorrectly blamed Iranian students studying in Hungary.
In Poland, state-owned media stated that opposition mayors had undertaken policies that aided the virus's spread. At the same time, to stifle critical voices, Central European countries such as Hungary, Romania, and Bulgaria imposed stiffer criminal penalties on media sites they believed were promoting fake news. [6]
The Case of the Jamaat
Source: Illustration by Sukruti Anah Stanley
In March 2020, Jamaat members from about 70 nations gathered at its Markaz in Delhi's Nizamuddin area. The event occurred weeks before the COVID-19 guidelines were issued, which prohibited social and religious gatherings. The Union Government accused foreign Tablighi tourists of spreading the coronavirus in India, causing a wave of Islamophobia throughout the country.
The Markaz meeting was quickly branded as the "super spreader" of the coronavirus. The Union government condemned the Markaz for "acting irresponsibly," in hosting the event, as well as the Tablighi Jamaat participants for going across India and bringing the virus with them. Top health ministry authorities recognised the Markaz and Tablighi Jamaat as contributing to the spread of the coronavirus. The Delhi government identified the Markaz as a main source of virus spread. Media outlets began discussing the 'Corona Jihad,' a plot to disseminate COVID-19 and infect Indians.
Finally, in December, a Delhi court acquitted 36 foreigners charged with attending the Tablighi Jamaat assembly, alleging negligence and disobedience to government instructions made in response to the country's pandemic. The Supreme Court of India later reprimanded various media outlets for communalising the Tablighi Jamaat gathering event in Delhi. The Chief Justice questioned the Union administration also, asking, "You have regulatory mechanisms in place for newspapers and television, but are you suggesting that there is no regulatory mechanism?" [9]
Lying (about) Figures
Deception of data and its representation can be accomplished by subtle misrepresentation or the outright act of incorrect reporting of data collection. Governments and anti-establishment organisations have employed both of these techniques. Among the authoritarian motivations for manipulating data are the need to preserve face and the need to maintain an iron grip on the narrative. The human tendency to associate numbers with objective truth is usually responsible for the success of these tactics.
"Flattening the curve" was the first obsession that gripped the public's mind during the outbreak, and it was viewed as a key indicator of progress in combating the virus. Here are some humorous but shameful attempts by media outlets to capitalise on it:
Source: Russia Today // The number of COVID-19 cases in Russia from
March 5 to March 31, 2020
The raw growth rate given at the bottom of the image doesn't correspond with the increase in the size of the bar graphs from March 26th.
Source: British Broadcasting Corporation //
Fatality Ratios Compared
More of a visual trick to elicit panic. The graph lacks context and ends near the highest percentage, giving the impression of a more serious figure than 15%.
Source: Georgia Department of Public Health// Georgia Kills the Virus
A poor attempt at arbitrarily reordering the dates to conveniently highlight "reducing number of cases".
At the end of 2021, the Indian government was under heavy scrutiny over the number of reported deaths caused by COVID-19. The government's reported figures were eight times lower than the World Health Organisation's (WHO) estimate. While experts believed that the Indian government misunderstood the WHO's system for reporting cases, the government's ill-placed complaints and deliberate delays indicated otherwise. In recent years, the Indian government has consistently expressed concern about international media reporting and studies. [7]
Over to India’s unruly neighbours to the north, as late as December 2023, China was reporting new COVID-19 cases. China had already suffered global repercussions for being the birthplace of the virus. Despite this animosity, China has refused to cooperate with the WHO and other health agencies multiple times. The Chinese National Health Commission decided to discontinue the publication of daily COVID-19 data in December 2023, amid growing criticism of its reporting accuracy. [8]
Pseudo-Science and Homeschooled Doctors
Source: @PypAyurved/Twitter// Fraudulent Advertising by Patanjali
COVID-19 was an unpredictable disease that piqued people's interest. People began to believe false news, tried homemade remedies, and believed fraudulent health claims. The fraudulent health claims are primarily due to pseudoscientific health therapies. Homoeopathy, alternative medicine, herbal medicine, and ancient quackery are popular and well-promoted fraudulent practices that promise to cure infections, eliminate viruses from the body, and increase/boost a person's immunity.
Video clips were shared on social media, challenging evidence-based science and medicine and directing people towards non-evidence-based treatments. One of these videos depicted numerous persons whose bodies had grown magnetic and absorbed metals after taking the COVID-19 vaccine. Such information, when spread among the masses, leads many to lose faith in scientific therapies. Pseudo-science outbreaks pose a greater risk than the COVID-19 pandemic did because long-term pseudoscience may indirectly kill more people.
In India, much of the misinformation spread through WhatsApp, which has more than 400 million users. From lemon drops to vitamin-C tablets, armchair experts and self-proclaimed doctors devised supposed cures at the rate of every WhatsApp forward. Even the Ministry of AYUSH had stepped in to offer their pseudo-scientific advice. The Ministry recommended the homoeopathic drug Arsenicum album 30 as a preventive drug.[10] The theory and practice of Ayurveda and Homeopathy are unethical and pseudoscientific.
Recovering but not Healing
Source: Samuel Rajkumar/Reuters
“The planet isn’t going anywhere... we are! We’re going away!”
This quote is taken from a comedy routine called “Saving the Planet” by the legendary comedian and social critic George Carlin. He was seen as a visionary for his timeless routines about societal problems and existential questions. Carlin humorously mentions multiple times in this routine how the planet is doing just "fine", but the people are not.
The COVID-19 pandemic brought the world as we know it to a sudden stop. The pandemic served as a warning to the democratic order of the modern world. The fight is against authoritarianism and democracy’s proclivity to devolve into it in the face of such a crisis. Two centuries of rapid scientific and technological progress have not been enough to give us even a quantum of immortality.
While a return to daily life can be seen as a recovery from the pandemic, we mustn't forget the deep scars it has left us. On a human scale, a new normal has been established, and we are acclimatising to it. But on a larger scale, the pandemic has accentuated our societal inequalities and distrust in institutions. There is a need for stronger institutions and a fight against pseudo-science. We must rebuild trust in our institutions and equip them to handle future crises effectively. Promoting scientific literacy and critical thinking has to be a priority in the post-pandemic world. The nationalist knee-jerk reaction was understandable at the outset of the pandemic. But moving slowly into a post-COVID world, a coordinated and global response is critical to supporting health system recovery and economic buffers in countries severely affected by COVID-19 and its ramifications.
Written by:
Kumar Abhyuday
Editor
PES MUN Society
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