-by Jitka Kranz
The emergence of fake-news in times of corona
Fake-news can be a danger to society under any circumstances, however in times such as these they are especially dangerous. Austria is no exception in this regard. Fake-news have been appearing on social media and various online platforms. Generally, one could classify them into several categories, one of them being fake-news that tackle governmental policies. Austria, such as most if not all European countries, has put many regulations in place that very severely restrict the people’s freedom and their rights as citizens in a democratic country. This leads to some people fearing that this state is going to prevail for a longer time than it is necessary and will be used to solidify the country's control over its population. Taking a look into one of our neighbouring countries, Hungary, the present state of emergency certainly could be abused by the leading party or even single politicians such as Viktor Orban, however I do think that it is not an overstatement to say that Austria’s democracy is in a better state than Hungary’s. Despite the not very numerous fake-news of such kind there is another type of fake-news circling around government policy; fake-news that announce the amplification of government policies such as the close down of all non-essential business as we have seen in Italy. This type of fake-news effects especially small businesses that fight for their survival already now.
However, the perhaps most dangerous type of fake news talks about the disease, the corona virus itself. No matter if it describes false symptoms or a medicine to cure the virus, all of this false information is very dangerous for the population of a country as a whole. The authors of such news have been highly creative in proposing simple tips on how to treat corona. Such tips vary from fairly harmless ones such as eating garlic, drinking hot water and then air blowing hot air into the mouth or drinking excessive amounts of alcohol which is supposed to disinfect the throat and kill the virus to much more dangerous ones such as drinking diluted bleach and other chemicals.
In order to fight the load of fake-news and alleviate its negative effects the Austrian government has set up a digital crisis management group which is supposed to detect and correct fake-news. This task force is led mainly by the state police and is primarily executed by police school students that currently cannot go to school. As of mid-last week, the task force has detected and corrected about 300 fake-news on the web. One can only hope that people will turn to trustworthy information sources and do not give fake news too much attention.
Have a nice rest of the week and stay healthy!
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