February 4, 2022
The World Health Organization (WHO) launched a global campaign to monitor information on social networks and news reports, and take actions to alter global conversations.
It referred to this as a campaign for “Immunizing the public against misinformation.” It coined the word “infodemic” and still states on its website that there’s “an overabundance of information and the rapid spread of misleading or fabricated news, images, and videos.
Like the virus, it is highly contagious and grows exponentially. It also complicates COVID-19 pandemic response efforts.” Its director general, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, said “We’re not just battling the virus. We’re also battling the trolls and conspiracy theorists that push misinformation and undermine the outbreak response.”
The biggest part of this announcement, wasn’t this whole “infodemic.” A lot of people got stuck on that point, then didn’t read further into how the WHO was responding to this term they coined. Crossroads host Joshua Philipp explains this campaign, how it developed, and analyzes how it's now being used.
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