Flattening the Curve of Fake News in the Epoch of Infodemic: An Epistemic Challenge

Introduction

The world is concurrently under a twin disaster of a paralyzing health challenge that is gradually overwhelming every nation, known as Coronavirus (COVID-19), and the problem of information disorder that has been stimulated by the unrestricted access to the use of social media is worsening the situation. Digital communication had become a mechanism that can no longer be overlooked, especially with the role it played during the Arab spring when it was used to upstaged many governments in the middle east and became identified as a platform to strengthened democratic principle (Pan American Health Organization and World Health Organization, 2020). Social media provides the prospect of receiving timely, precise information about practically anything. The flip side of the coin is that it has also become an avenue for spreading misinformation. This unfounded fairytale is capable of promoting panic, especially when accurate information can be a matter of life and death. As a result of the disorderliness on social media, The World Health Organization (2020) has described as “infodemic” the outbreak of overwhelming information concerning the Coronavirus circulating on various social media which put many people on predicament on how to identify dependable sources and trustworthy guidance when it is necessary. In realization of the damaging effect of fake news, the World Health Organization established a social media team to combat the destructive impact of misinformation that can potentially harm people’s health. These efforts of the World Health Organization are anchored on helping the general public to decrease. The dawn social media has led unrestricted access to all manners of information, and this has coxswained to disorderly management of information. Which is poised to threaten the integrity of the information in public space and heightens the level of unreliability of what is available, because of the apparent disorderliness in the information environment as a result of hesitancy to control activities on social media coupled with the predicament of interfering with the fundamental right of an individual to free speech (Durodolu and Ibenne, 2020, Durodolu, Ibenne and Dube (2021). In contrast to traditional media, that can be located from a correct address, ascertaining the whereabouts of developers of fake news is difficult, as information can be manufacture at the secluded geographical location and causing a ripple effect across the globe, with consequences felt in all the four compass-point of the world and tracking down such individual to face the repercussion of their offence is not easy (Durodolu and Ibenne, 2020).

For example, the damaging effect of fake news had informed the position of World Health Organization when its termed as “infodemic” because of how the occurrence of Coronavirus led to the outpouring of misinformation on social media and various other websites, most of which contain erroneous and misleading information to cause panic and media frenzy (Zoe, 2020). The injurious effects of fake news can also be felt in the devastating impact on the economic and social life, and we now live in the era of a grand onslaught on truth, propagation, alternative facts, and post-truth epoch which has led to information anxiety and peril on democratic life. Fake news is make-believe stories, deployed and carefully crafted to disguise reality and to make it appear like credible editorial reports premeditated to misled, embarrass a person, association and government by using different harm twisting techniques to attract readership and lead to financial benefits or gain political position (Zarocostas, 2020). Once made available on social media platform it goes viral. Because of the sensation generated by such misinformation, many people become voluntarily or involuntary carrier of the information, many of this distorted information often outperform genuine traditional sources of information (Brennen, 2017: 179). Many scholars have expressed outrage about how rapidly it is getting to separate fiction from fact to the extent that the whole essence of the theory of empiricism which is anchored on an acquisition of knowledge through senses (ability to see, hear, smell, taste and touch) has now been challenged with this new reality, where technology is being manipulated to make people see, hear and touch what never existed.