Can The Metaverse Combat COVID Infodemic?

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It’s not what you say that matters. It’s what people hear. And what people are hearing on social media regarding Covid-19 in general, and the vaccines in particular, should scare you, reports CNBC.

Potential harm in digital world

On the day that Mark Zuckerberg announced Meta, John Carmack, the consulting chief technology officer for Oculus (Facebook’s virtual reality unit), acknowledged the potential harm in the digital world, saying, “If there is a demonstrated harm, then yes, we should try to mitigate the harm … I think generally the right thing to do is to wait until harm actually manifests.”

The impact of social media on health goes beyond Covid

Social media has been weaponized to spread misinformation about Covid and the vaccines, which has contributed to lower vaccination rates and, ultimately, cost American lives. We don’t yet know what the “metaverse” will look like, but it’s not hyperbolic to assume misinformation will fester and spread just the same, if not worse.

Morning Consult conducted a recent poll for us that provides additional proof of the negative impact of social media use on our ability to save lives during the pandemic.
Those who said they share information daily on social media are the most likely to believe unfounded and inaccurate statements about Covid including incorrect information about infertility, the impact of the mRNA vaccine on DNA and the severity and prevalence of the virus.

Vaccination

Social media is also influencing people’s willingness to get vaccinated — or not. Just over half of the unvaccinated respondents said social media was pushing them to wait or forgo the vaccine, and the vaccination rate among people who said social media was one of their primary sources of information was 16% lower than the rate among the general public.

Battle against misinformation

The battle against misinformation goes beyond this pandemic as false and misleading information poses a real and measurable threat to our collective and individual health.

Our nation, and especially the public health community, can’t be caught flat-footed again when the next crisis or pandemic hits. As the digital world evolves, so must public health.

In a new era of “techno public health,” collaboration between public health practitioners and social media could include:

  1. Partnerships between social media companies and public health practitioners to create, adopt, and implement accepted public health principles and protocols for the digital world.
  2. Congress creating a “digital world” safety office at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to monitor incidence of misinformation and deliberate disinformation on social media platforms and support ongoing research .
  3. State and local governmental public health agencies creating roles for digital community health workers.

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Source: CNBC