Fake news may be to blame for vaccine hesitancy - Media Monitoring Africa

At the height of the Covid scare last year, government and scientists raced against the clock to curb the rising infections but soon had to fight the added enemy of fake news. 

Several myth-busting organisations raised concerns about the detrimental impact fake news would have on efforts to fight Covid-19.

Despite checks and balances in place to sift out misleading information, fake news remains prevalent. 

Director of Media Monitoring Africa William Bird says it’s only getting worse.

“Mis- and disinformation are like the pandemic itself, these are things that are evils that are with us and are not going away anytime soon,” says Bird. 

“What we are seeing is a clear identification of the trends so when Covid-19 started a lot of the trends were about ‘does this exist? Has it been made up? Is it being released by Chinese? Has been released by Bill Gates?’ All sorts of things to suggest it wasn’t there

“As that moved on and we began to see new events we began to see an uptick in mis- and disinformation. Now we’re at the vaccine programme and suddenly we start to see less of a focus on Covid-19 not existing and more focus on the vaccines not working - ‘they haven’t been tested, they have microchips in them, they contain the foetuses of babies’ - all of these crazy ideas about vaccines.” 

Birds adds these are some the examples of fake news making the rounds.

He believes such examples have done some damage to government’s vaccine programme.

“There’s no doubt about that. It’s clear that some of the people’s fears get heightened by that,” says Bird.

“When you are dealing with something new like that, people normally and appropriately are a bit sceptical and nervous of that kind of thing and what the misinformation does it heighten that fear.”

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Reputable news brands like Jacaranda FM are often used by those who peddle fake news to try and give legitimacy to their stories. 

Recently, Jacaranda FM was name-checked in a fake news story on vaccines doing the rounds on social media.

Listen below:

Bird warns against taking information on social media at face value, reiterating the need to verify facts and sources again government information and credible media houses. 

Meanwhile on Friday, government had to dispel some social media posts claiming President Cyril Ramaphosa would address the nation soon.

Some social media users have speculated the country would be moved to stricter regulations amid rising infection.

Government spokesperson Phumla Williams says the National Coronavirus Command Council is yet to meet to discuss possible changes. 

“Please ignore any message doing the rounds on any level changes. NCCC is only scheduled to meet next week 29th.”

Listen to Bird below: