DISINFORMATION DURING THE CORNAVIRUS PANDEMIC. AN ANALYSIS OF THE TYPES OF FAKE NEWS IN FOUR STATES

Abstract

Disinformation is currently a real globally danger, and during the coronavirus pandemic it has reached alarming levels in the European Union and beyond. Studies in the field show that, in the first six months after the outbreak of the Covid-19 epidemic, false information was distributed through millions of false accounts on social networks, but also on messaging platforms such as WhatsApp. This paper analyzes, through the qualitative and quantitative method, the types of false news topics that have been published on various obscure sites and then distributed on social networks or messaging platforms. The analysis is made in three countries of the European Union (Romania, Italy and France) and in Russia, and news examples were selected from highly trusted fact-checking platforms, such as the one developed by the European Commission. The research highlights the extremely similarity between the news broadcast in the European Union and reflects the message differences of the fake materials distributed in Russia.

Keywords

• fake news
• covid-19
• social media
• propaganda
• freedom of expression