Infodemic and misinformation in times of pandemic

A survey of the main false news spread on social networks in Brazil during the first stage of Covid-19

Abstract

The New Coronavirus Pandemic (SARS-CoV-2) has changed the world's social, cultural and economic interaction protocols. The Covid-19 disease, which is transmitted by contact, imposed the immediate and necessary social distancing to diminish the advance of contagion and reduce the infectious curve. Few are the scientific certainties about the new disease, its symptoms and effects, prophylaxis, treatment and mapping, but in a highly computerized world and with the massive migration of people to the Internet, social networks have become fertile ground for the dissemination of deliberately false news about the current public health scenario. We live an infodemic on the pandemic, in a context that opens margins for case-by-case manipulation of the population, putting public health at risk and at the center of the debate. This article attempts to bring more provocations than responses to the current environment of misinformation, in view of the contemporaneity of events, in the light of a dynamic reading provoked by the encounter of the political crisis with the health emergency crisis caused by the new coronavirus. In this sense, the aim is to make a survey of the main false news disseminated on social networks during the stages of advancement of the disease in Brazil and then open a debate to analyze the impacts of these misinformations on the fundamental right of access to information.