Stop the Spread of Misinformation: Sanitize Before You Share

If we’ve discovered something because the COVID-19 pandemic upended all our lives practically 2 years in the past, it’s the way to sanitize our fingers, properties, workplaces, and absolutely anything we encounter to cease the unfold of the virus. Turns out, we additionally want to take care of that vigilance when encountering details about COVID-19 in our social media feeds. As the pandemic continued, harmful misinformation about remedies, cures, and the vaccines flourished. This atmosphere has underscored the significance of consuming and sharing on-line content material with care. And that method applies not solely to a public well being disaster, however to all info we encounter. We have to take steps to make sure a submit, photograph, or meme is “sanitized” earlier than we belief it, prefer it, move it on, or put it on the market in any method.

The News Literacy Project, a nonpartisan nationwide schooling nonprofit, has created steps you possibly can observe to make sure that you apply good info hygiene. NLP, a information literacy schooling chief since 2008, offers applications and sources that can assist you achieve the talents, data, and mindset to be sensible customers of reports and different info. If we sanitize the method round our info habits, we will forestall deceptive and false content material — which could be hazardous to our well being and society — from being broadly shared and probably doing hurt.

You don’t want any particular abilities or know-how to find out how to take action. NLP offers you with important steerage in its infographic, “Sanitize before you share: 4 quick steps to stop the spread of misinformation.” It can take solely 4 steps to maintain your self or others from turning into a “superspreader” of misinformation. And should you discover credible proof {that a} social media submit isn’t true or the supply is unreliable, warn others in a reply to the submit, and if mandatory, report it to platform directors.

This article is a part of WebMD’s contributor program, which lets folks and organizations outdoors of WebMD submit articles for consideration on our web site. Have an concept for a submission? Email us at [email protected]