Director General of the World Health Organization (WHO), Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, announced at the Munich Security Conference in February 2020:
“we’re not just fighting an epidemic; we’re fighting an infodemic … Fake news spreads faster and more easily than this virus, and is just as dangerous.
That’s why we’re also working with search and media companies like Facebook, Google, Pinterest, Tencent, Twitter, TikTok, YouTube and others to counter the spread of rumours and misinformation…
- This is a time for facts, not fear.
- This is a time for rationality, not rumours.
- This is a time for solidarity, not stigma.
In April 2020 the UN Secretary-General launched the United Nations Communications Response initiative to combat the spread of mis- and disinformation, then at the World Health Assembly in May 2020, WHO Member States passed Resolution WHA73.1 on the COVID-19 response to recognize “that managing the infodemic is a critical part of controlling the COVID-19 pandemic”. [1]
Infodemic is now a “public health” issue managed by WHO Department of Global Infectious Hazard Preparedness, who state infodemics occur during an epidemic, and is an “emerging scientific field” called infodemiology. [6]
The WHO hold Infodemic Management training (1st, 2nd, 3rd), they have an Infodemic Management team, they hold conferences and produce summary reports, they’re doing infodemic research and so much more. [2, 3, 4, 5]
This inspired the formation of “The Disinformation Project” in New Zealand to study the trends of mis- and disinformation. [7]