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The emergence of the novel coronavirus (SARSCoV2) in December 2019 coincided with the spread of fake news. As social and traditional media became inundated with content about COVID-19, the World Health Organization (WHO) announced that the pandemic was accompanied by an information epidemic, an “infodemic” (Al-Zaman, 2021). Although previous research has addressed how and why information is consumed and broadcast on social networking sites (Kapoor et al., 2018), this is the first time academics have been confronted with an infodemic (Schuetz et al., 2021; Shirish et al., 2021).
Fake news creates an uncertain atmosphere and generates tension, misconception, and mistrust among citizens of every nation. In the era of digital communication, online fake news is gaining new momentum. The primary reason for this trend is that approximately 90% of the world’s population depends on the Internet for health-related information (Colominq et al., 2021).
Internet connectivity and social media is a unique and effective channel to spread misinformation among users rapidly and for malicious actors to target populations across borders. This production and consumption of false information has intensified the pandemic-led crisis (Griffin, 2020). For example, a single instance of medicine-related fake news claimed at least 800 lives and led to the hospitalization of 5000 more (Al-Zaman, 2021). Studies related to fake news associated with COVID-19 are important for researchers to deliberate. And more studies are required in this domain to capture nuances pertaining to differences between nations to understand what drives or inhibits citizens to explore and share fake information.
COVID-19 is a unique global phenomenon, but the impact of fake news and the propensity for it differ from country to country. As highlighted by the Poynter Institute, more than half of COVID-related fake news originates in four countries: Brazil, Spain, India, and the United States (Poynter, 2020). A recent survey posits that the incidence of fake news is low in less polarized nations such as Denmark and Norway, where media literacy is high, and people prefer objective news. On the contrary, it also predicted that instances of misinformation are higher in nations like Brazil, Kenya, and South Africa, where national institutions are weaker (Shirish et al., 2021).
The difference in the volume of fake news related to COVID-19 between countries, and the potential damage that this information may cause, provides centrality to research that identifies the factors that lead to country-level fake news propensity. Such research will help governments better understand the phenomenon of the infodemic and enable the development and design of appropriate policies to curtail it.
Moreover, the spread of fake news on social media poses a direct threat to public health. Governments aim to reduce locally fabricated false medical claims to minimize potential harm to their citizens. For instance, since late January 2021, researchers at the Taiwan FactCheck Center have spent time analyzing reports on fake remedies, counterfeit drugs, and false tests. Claims such as smelling sesame and other oils can kill SARS-CoV2 before it reaches the lungs have become popular in various regions of the world. Claims, for example, that COVID-19 is caused by the 5G network, the entire pandemic is a hoax, and the hospitals in France are empty have dire consequences (Bruns et al., 2020). Such news has resulted in decreased compliance with quarantine, sanitary measures, and willingness to vaccinate, accelerating the spread of coronavirus (Andersson et al., 2021). A recent study found that one in six people in the UK would reject the coronavirus vaccine, and fake news has led to other anti-vaccine campaigns in France and the United States (Jolley & Cookson, 2020). The popularity of this news owes to the fact that there is a huge knowledge gap around COVID-19. Therefore, focusing scientific efforts to understand the underlying factors that affect fake news propensity is timely and relevant.