Facebook and misinformation

There are idiots everywhere and they have a platform

Last night I made the mistake of jumping on Facebook for a quick scroll. I really need to stop doing this! One page that I follow is a pro-vaccine/science page. I read a post that I agreed with, then I read a couple of comments — most of which aligned with my thoughts. Then I read a statement that was so clearly false that I felt I must reply.

The comment stated Singapore was planning on living with Covid-19, which was true. The misinformation came in that we are doing so without a mask mandate or any other measures. This is utter bullshit. I know that because I live in Singapore, and the law is that you are expected to always wear a mask if you leave your house. If you don’t wear one, you can be fined or jailed, and there are people employed to follow up on non-compliance issues. Trust me, there have been several people fined and jailed for not masking up.

The person has not responded. It is most likely because they don’t have any facts to back up their statement and had probably just commented to stir the pot. To me, though, it was an example of how challenging social media can be to navigate.

What I found interesting was how this person had taken some truth. Singapore is opening travel bubbles. They have stated they plan to live with Covid-19 as endemic, not as a pandemic. This person then twisted the reasons to fit with their own belief systems that masks, social distancing etc., don’t work. They ignored the whole reason that Singapore has been able to take this new stance is that they (as of right now) have 78% of the population over 12 double vaccinated. We have mask mandates, social distancing requirements, contact tracing and group size limits. Recently we also have vaccine differentiated rules. Suppose you want to eat at a restaurant. In that case, you must show proof of vaccination status or have evidence of a negative covid-19 test.

They basically ignored all the inconvenient parts of what made Singapore’s stance possible. I assume that this means someone has been sharing this news on other Facebook groups to enable people to now quote this misinformation as fact. It means at some point, someone made an intentional decision to write down a lie. They took the part they liked and…

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