Since the discovery of Cambodia's first COVID-19 case on March 7, the country's Ministry of Health has tried to foster public awareness of preventative measures as well as the risks of exposure via statements posted on their Facebook page. These posts have conveyed a sense of urgency and signaled the importance of heightening precautions nationwide.
The pandemic has also brought with it an explosion of information on Facebook, Cambodia's social media platform of choice. This information comes from a variety of sources, from news, to posts by ordinary citizens, to podcasts related to the matter, and not all of these sources are completely trustworthy.
Some of this information the public has been exposed to is filled with controversies, rumors and misinformation. In January 2020, based on Chinese aviation data, which later was affirmed by the State Secretariat of Civil Aviation, over 3000 Chinese nationals flew from Wuhan to Cambodia prior to the lockdown imposed by the city. Their presence had led to uncertified claims and rumors on social media that these Chinese nationals had contracted the virus. Rumors that Prime Minister Hun Sen would declare a state of emergency regarding COVID-19 were also circulated on many social media platforms.
False information, when it comes to COVID-19, is dangerous for many reasons. It has the potential to not only deprive people of facts that might prevent them from getting sick, but it also adds to the risk of stimulating public irrationality and panic over nonexistent threats.
The COVID-19 pandemic illustrates the need for the Cambodian government to prioritise news and information literacy as part of its educational system. Without the tools and skills to distinguish facts from falsehoods, Cambodians are at risk of falling for false claims and ignoring advice that might save their lives.
Misinformation and Mental Health
In mid-March, Ministry of Health spokesperson Or Vandine, said at an event Journalism Tackles COVID-19 and Fake News that fake news is spreading at an alarming rate because fabricated information appears more persuasive than real news. She added that the mental health of Cambodian people is being affected by misinformation surrounding COVID-19.
"False news about the novel coronavirus makes people uneasy and pollutes society. Misinformation spreads faster than accurate news… Unfortunately, not many people have the opportunity to read or listen to factual news because they are drowning in a sea of fake news."
The mental health impacts of misinformation have been well-documented. Peter Adams, of the News Literacy Project, a US-based programme that aims to educate people on how to separate fact from fiction in the news, spoke with National Public Radio about how the fear of coronavirus-related misinformation impacts people's mental health, and how the process reinforces the cycle of misinformation.
"Most misinformation has a strong emotional effect on us," he said. "And that can kind of override our rational minds. So, if we're intensely angry or we're intensely fearful, that can cause us to share things more quickly with less caution and cause us to kind of short-circuit our critical thinking and not scrutinise the information that we're seeing."
Cambodia is certainly not the only country where online misinformation runs rampant.
The Reuters Institute at the University of Oxford carried out an analysis of more than 200 English language coronavirus-related claims rated false or misleading by fact checkers of First Draft, a project to fight mis- and disinformation online. This false content ranged from claims that eating bananas could help prevent COVID-19 to insinuations that certain ethnic groups or communities were responsible for the spread of the disease.
Overall, the study found that 59 percent of the claims were "reconfigured", consisting of factual information that had been twisted into falsehoods, and 38 percent of the false claims had been completely fabricated and were based on zero truth.
The authors of this study concluded that "addressing the spread of misinformation about COVID-19 will take a sustained and coordinated effort by independent fact-checkers, independent news media, platform companies, and public authorities to help the public understand and navigate the pandemic."
Globally, the World Health Organization (WHO) is trying to do its part to stop the spread of misinformation. In a bid to tackle the problems posed by false information concerning the virus, the WHO added a "Mythbusters" section on its online coronavirus advice page, designed to refute noteworthy controversial claims related to coronavirus—claims like drinking alcoholic drinks can protect against the virus, eating garlic can prevent the virus, or that hot and humid climates keep the virus from spreading.
Unproven claims like the one about hot and humid climates could obviously have far-reaching consequences on the lives of Cambodians where warmth and humidity are permanent climate features. If this myth goes unchecked online, it could render the population negligent in their effort to protect themselves from the virus.
What is the Cambodian government doing to suppress misleading or false information online?
The government has said they have "zero tolerance" for the spreading of false information. In March 2020, the Club of Cambodian Journalists (CCJ) held a press conference about COVID-19 and Fake News in the Kingdom.
The Ministry of Information identified 47 Facebook pages and users that had spread misinformation around the outbreak. In response, the government urged the public to follow reliable sources of information like the Ministry of Health's Facebook page and the US Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) to keep themselves informed about COVID-19.
Prime Minister Hun Sen and Ministry of Information spokesman Meas Sophorn also threatened legal measures against those who have spread fake news and urged media outlets nationwide to be more vigilant when publishing news about the coronavirus.
In February 2020, a month before the first case of the virus had been identified in the kingdom, the Ministry of Information partnered with WHO to organise a training for journalists to equip them with better knowledge regarding the virus and how it spreads so that they can ensure correct reporting of the outbreak situation.
Recently, Sophorn has continued to warn that if any journalists carry on behaving unprofessionally, the ministry and relevant institutions would take action that may lead to the suspension or termination of the license for publication. In addition, if the case amounts to a crime, the action will be taken by examining the facts and the law in each case.
Combating Misinformation on a National Level
Worldwide, the number of COVID-19 infections continue to rise. The toll has risen past 87 million cases with over 1.8 million deaths worldwide. In late 2020, Cambodia was back in a state of fear after the Hungarian Foreign Minister tested positive following an official visit to the kingdom, and the country identified its first COVID-19 community outbreak in November 2020, where 41 people involved at an event tested positive for COVID-19, the highest number of confirmed cases identified thus far caused by a single event.
This is a reminder that even in Cambodia, where the physical impact of the virus has been relatively mild, the "end" of the pandemic is still a long way off. As the pandemic continues globally, it seems inevitable that false information will continue to spread.
To combat this problem, it is crucial that the public is equipped with a certain amount of critical media literacy. Championing projects, courses or training related to media literacy will be a vital start in the fight against misinformation in Cambodia, not only for the current outbreak situation, but also serve as a rigorous preparation for other unforeseen crisis to come in the future. Public figures who are active and influential on social media could play an important role especially in this age of digitalisation to raise public awareness about fake news and its impacts on society.
The Ministry of Information can work collaboratively with these public figures to guide the public in critically utilising the information on social media through releasing educational videos on the country's most popular platforms like Facebook or Instagram. Incorporating media literacy into the national curriculum will just as be useful in combating issues related to misinformation.
Photo credit: United Nations COVID-19 Response