Read the text below and answer the questions which follow it.
OPINION: FAKE NEWS ABOUT THE CORONA VIRUS AND SCIENCE IN GENERAL
By Marc Schiltz
The news about the Corona Virus epidemic is making many people hold their breath on a daily basis. A theory has been spreading on social media that the virus did not – as assumed – start on a market in the Chinese city of Wuhan, but that it was created in a lab where scientists experimented with viruses. The ‘theory’ is that something went wrong with their experiment and this led to the virus. Despite no foundation for this claim, it is spreading like fire, like the virus itself.
The internet and social networks pose a new and difficult challenge for dealing with information. Scientific studies have shown that false information spreads on social media up to ten times faster than truthful information, and that false information tends to reach a wider number of users.
Then there is the phenomenon of “social robots”: robots deployed on social media to spread information in a way where it appears they are real users. A recent study indicated that one quarter of the tweets about climate change were posted by such robots, with the majority devoid of any scientific foundation. This proportion was higher in certain topics—robots were responsible for 38% of tweets about “fake science” and 28% of all tweets about the petroleum giant Exxon.
Science struggles with Fake News. Most of the time, Fake News are short and very objective. On the other hand, Scientific and medical articles are long and complex. Still, science must try to fight back– for example what the WHO is trying to do with information about the Corona Virus epidemic.
One avenue is to get more visibility, for example by bringing science together with ‘influencers’, supporting science journalists, or increasing the communication coming directly from the scientists. Science actors can also create their
own platforms with large visibility – as Luxembourg has done with science.lu.
It is clear – it will be a great challenge to limit the spread of Fake News and pseudo-science, just like the Corona Virus.
Avaiable in: https://www.fnr.lu/research-with-impact-fnrhighlight/opinion-fake-news-about-the-corona-virus-andscience-in-general/. Access 13 mar 2020.
Glossary: spread: espalhar; foundation: fundamento; deployed: implantados; devoid: desprovido(a); struggles: luta
The only statement, about the spread of fake news, which is TRUE, according to the text is
