How to help your family navigate the coronavirus 'infodemic' on WhatsApp - Macleans.ca

An Indian girl watches a video on the WhatsApp app in New Delhi, India on Mar. 24. With coronavirus starting to spread in the region, social media are rife with bogus remedies, tales of magic cures and potentially hazardous medical advice. Once a day, my iPhone will let out a sharp, staggered ding. The noise is distinct from all the other notifications I usually get—the dings go on and on, as my phone tries to keep up with the 30 messages I’ve received in the span of two seconds.

This doesn’t alarm me, or at least, it didn’t used to. My 77-year-old grandmother has a habit of forwarding several messages at once on WhatsApp. She lives in Chicago, some 1,600 miles away from my apartment in Edmonton, and the messaging app is the way we stay connected. But her messages—forwarded to almost everyone on her contact list—usually come at odd times during the day.

Since the outbreak of the deadly coronavirus, an older generation of immigrants who rely on WhatsApp or WeChat to stay connected with family overseas are now spending more time on these messaging platforms. And since all anyone talks or reads about nowadays is COVID-19, their forwarded messages now follow a similar theme. But in the era of rampant disinformation, not everything they read, watch and share is credible.

Alarmed by what my grandmother might be reading or sending on the messaging platform, I began to pay closer attention to those WhatsApp dings. I worried she might believe some of these hoaxes and unknowingly put herself in danger. News of an Arizona man in his 60s dying after ingesting chloroquine phosphate, which was touted as a COVID-19 treatment by U.S. president Donald Trump, only added to my anxiety.

on today’s episode of fake whatsapp news: a Harvard professor *created* coronavirus and sold it to China.

Restricting flights from high risk areas does nothing. Screening at airports is in place. It is Trump's fault that PMJT gave China 16 tons of medical supplies when told to stock up...all kinds of wonderful nonsense in the MSM, never mind the web.

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Advice on masks is changing as coronavirus knowledge evolvesCanadian public-health officials are now saying that wearing a mask in public is a good idea to help prevent the spread of coronavirus – or at least not a bad idea Just like telfordk would gave written it.. You missed 'This just in from liberal_party HQ' The rest of the world outside of the Liberal bubble and their media lapdogs has known this for a while. The knowledge itself hasn’t changed. The position of these officials have because this is getting out of hand now. Too bad that they are two months late. Now with social distancing, we shouldn’t need a mask too often. I just hope frontline workers will get what they need.
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