The anatomy of fake news about Covid-19

The coronavirus disease 2019 (Covid-19) has been a super-spreader event of misinformation online, leading to an all-time high level of fake news online, according to a report of Tech.co late last year. The unprecedented rise of misinformation and disinformation online about the coronavirus started at the onset of the pandemic in 2020.

For instance, in April last year, the CoronaVirusFact Alliance database recorded nearly 4,000 coronavirus-related hoaxes circulating around the world. In the UK during the first week alone of the country’s lockdown last year, 46 percent of adults on the internet saw false or misleading information about Covid-19, according to a study by telecoms regulator Ofcom. In France just this March 2021, 58 percent of adults surveyed by Statista said that the media they consult the most have reported false information about the Covid 19 outbreak.