Page - 192 - in VULNERABLE - The Law, Policy and Ethics of COVID-19

VULNERABLE192 theory, or item of misinformation hits a tipping point—that is, the item is starting to be shared more widely—it is important to vigor- ously counter. If we wait too long to attempt a correction, it may become increasingly difficult to stop the momentum of the misinfor- mation.42 As we have seen with issues like the myths surrounding vac- cination, once a conspiracy theory gets a strong foothold in the public conscious, it can be difficult to dislodge. A better interpretation of the existing literature is that while we need to be cognizant of the spreading concern, the evidence is far from definitive and what evidence is available suggests it doesn’t often happen. There are, of course, many other challenges associated with efforts to correct misinformation, such as the possibility for a range of additional unintended consequences (for example, general warning tags skewing how people perceive legitimate news).43 But despite the need for more research, there is nothing in the existing research to suggest debunking is a futile exercise. On the contrary, as we will see, there is a growing body of evidence that tells us correcting information/>. See also Whitney Phillips, “The Oxygen of Amplification: Better Practices for Reporting on Extremists, Antagonists, and Manipulators Online” (2012), online: Data  &  Society  <https://datasociety.net/library/oxygen-of-amplifi- cation/>; Susan Benkelmam, “Getting it Right: Strategies for Truth-Telling in a Time of Misinformation and Polarization” (11 December 2019), online: American Press Institute <https://www.americanpressinstitute.org/publications/reports/ strategy-studies/truth-telling-in-a-time-of-misinformation-and-polarization/>: “Journalists must ask themselves whether a falsehood has become so significant that it needs to be knocked down.” 42. There is some recent evidence to support this view. See e.g. Wasim Ahmed et al, “COVID-19 and the 5G Conspiracy Theory: Social Network Analysis of Twitter Data” (2020) 22:5 J Medicine Internet Research e19458 at abstract: The authors found that “there was a lack of an authority figure who was actively combating such [5g] misinformation” on social media. What is needed, they conclude, is the “combination of quick and targeted interventions oriented to delegitimize the sources of fake information.” 43. John M Carey et al, “The Effects of Corrective Information about Disease Epidemics and Outbreaks: Evidence from Zika and Yellow Fever in Brazil” (2020) 6:5 Science Advances 1 at 9, DOI: <10.1126/sciadv.aaw7449>: “[A] general warning about the presence of fake news has been found to decrease belief in the accuracy of both false and legitimate news headlines.” For a study that found the opposite effect, see Gordon Pennycook et al, “The Implied Truth Effect: Attaching Warnings to a Subset of Fake News Headlines Increases Perceived Accuracy of Headlines Without Warnings” (2020) Management Science [forth- coming], DOI: <10.2139/ssrn.3035384>. While placing “fake news” warnings on social media content can have a positive impact, this study found that “the pres- ence of warnings caused untagged headlines to be seen as more accurate than in the control” (at abstract).