Stopping the spread of COVID-19 is the most important thing we are all doing right now. But also crucial at this time is not spreading inaccurate information about the virus.
From our social media feeds to our inboxes, we all have a lot of articles coming at us right now about this disease. It can be difficult to know what is worth taking seriously, what is worth ignoring, and what is worth passing on to others. Melissa Ryan — author of Hope Not Hate’s weekly newsletter — has put together good guidelines to help you sort that out.
Here are some highlights:
- You have probably been hearing the phrase “Flatten the curve” a lot. Well for simple, clear, actionable science about how you can do that, check out Flattenthecurve.com. (This is also a great link to send folks who won’t stay home!)
- Mike Caufield is working to improve civic discourse by developing web literacy skills. He offers a simple and effective method for how to gut check information you see online, specifically for COVID-19. You can see him apply this method to daily examples on his Twitter feed.
- Reporter Jane Lytvynenko tracks disinformation about world events in real-time both on her Twitter account and in articles she files.
- Journalist resource First Draft has built a searchable archive of COVID-19 debunks, and pulled together a great list of reliable sources from around the world.
- Journalism professor Jeff Jarvis has created this COVID Twitter list of 500 epidemiologists, virologists, physicians, researchers, NGOs, and selected specialist journalists.
- Pinterest has limited COVID-19 searches to only show results from internationally-recognized health organizations. So if you’re going to search social media for information, it turns out Pinterest is your most fact-checked option.
There are lots more gems in Melissa’s full blog post. It is something that is unquestionably worth checking out and sharing.
