Highlights:
- Uncertainty: Rumours that it’s all a hoax
- Pandemic Prejudice: Social Media driving anti-Chinese sentiment
- Close connections during COVID-19: Rumours about sexual transmission and cures
- Speedy Science: fuelling drug rumours
See below for Thai, Bahasa Indonesia, Hindi, Vietnamese and Simplified Chinese versions.
Internews is working with Translators without Borders and Standby Task Force to collect and analyse rumours and misinformation related to the SARS-CoV-2 virus and COVID-19 disease.
Data is being collected in eight languages across Asia including: Simplified Chinese, Tagalog, Vietnamese, Thai, Bahasa Indonesia, Hindi, Khmer and Urdu.
This analysis is based on 3,013 rumours collected between January 23, 2020, and May 22, 2020. Facebook and Twitter are the main platforms where this information was collected, but we have also recorded rumours from Weibo, WeChat, Line, Tiktok, Instagram, and other social media platforms.
This bulletin relies on social media data collected by monitors working for Internews and partner organisations. Data is collected both manually and with the use of specialist monitoring platforms. Content focuses on key trends in social media data collected in our target language groups and aims to provide tools and resources to help journalists and community workers to respond to misinformation in their work.
If you would like us to analyse social media posts related to a specific category of COVID-19 misinformation, would like resources for your newsroom, or would like to provide any feedback on our service, please contact us: .
If you would like to submit a rumour in any of the languages we monitor, you can use our simple online submission tool.
Download the bulletin here: