How to fact-check and verify information during the coronavirus pandemic

Why fact-checking is vital in a pandemic and tools to verify photos, documents and other information

Fake news and misinformation regarding the COVID-19 pandemic are doing the rounds on the internet and various social media platforms During a health crisis, misinformation can be very harmful. Purported cures for the disease, scamsters using fake phone numbers disguised as helplines, inaccurate guidelines claiming to be from the government etc. are just some examples of fake news and misinformation on the internet.

Sometimes, misinformation can endanger lives too. Elderly, children and those who are not news and tech-savvy are the most vulnerable to fake news and misinformation. Many pass on misinformation on social media channels with the good intention of keeping others safe, however, without verifying information that one passes on, the exercise can become counter-productive.

There are a few basic rules for consuming and sharing information on the internet. Firstly, one needs to make sure that if an entity claims something, unless it is a universal truth, verifiable evidence to prove their claim is provided. Without this, one must not take the information provided at face value.

Secondly, since the novel coronavirus is still new, many health authorities are still trying to understand the virus and disease it causes, hence, only share evidence-based research when it becomes available. Lastly, misinformation harms everybody at various magnitudes and hence, always verify information if in doubt.

Here are a few simple tools, methods, tips and tricks that you could use to verify information that you receive on WhatsApp, Twitter and other social media platforms.

1. Image and document verification: FOCA

FOCA is an open-source tool for Windows that gives you metadata information of a photo or document including the time it was shot/made, the copyright owner, the camera that was used to shoot the photo, time and location of the photo, which software was used to make a document among others. One can use this tool to check the authenticity of an image or document.

2. Check government websites for authentic documents

Many documents float around on the internet claiming to be authentic government documents and these may dish out instructions that are detrimental to your health and well-being in this health crisis. Check for documents published by the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare or state health ministries on their respective websites and follow these advisories carefully. When you receive documents on social media apps, always verify these by cross-checking with official documents on websites of ministries.

3. Reverse image search

Search engines offer reverse image search including Google. When you click on the camera icon on the Google Images webpage, you can upload a photo to check where else that image was published and who published the image first.

4. Facebook Post verification: Who Posted What?

This tool helps you search for posts on Facebook based on keywords, date, time ranges, locations. You could use this tool to verify who posted a particular piece of information first and whether someone made up that piece of information.

5. Twitter Bots: Botometer

Botometer is a tool that helps you check whether a particular Twitter account is a bot or not. A bot account on Twitter churns out specific automated tweets, retweets particular accounts and can do this at a high pace without the need for the regular human intervention. Bots are often built to serve a specific purpose. Sometimes, misinformation happen to be the purpose. Botometer checks the tweet behaviour of a particular account and gives you a score for the account, the higher the score, higher likelihood of the account being manned by a bot.

6. Location-based verification (Twitter)

The anonymity and wide reach that the internet provides make it easy to spread misinformation about a remote location without being there, hence if you want to verify information about a particular location, you can search for tweets from that location by searching on Twitter using the coordinates of the locality from which you seek information. The format to be used is, “geocode:coordinate,coordinate,Xkm” where Xkm is the target radius in kilometres.

To conclude, if we forward messages on social media platforms, it is our duty to make sure that the information we pass on is legitimate and will not cause harm in any way to the person addressed or society at large. In the health crisis we are living in today, it is vital that we do not put further stress on society by enabling misinformation but curb the menace by verifying the information we pass along.