The COVID-19 pandemic, one of the most critical health crises in recent history, resulted in nearly 7 million deaths worldwide. The ensuing infodemic, characterized by the proliferation of information about the virus and vaccines, persisted beyond the cessation of the international public health emergency. In Brazil, this infodemic had collateral effects, including increase and structuring of anti-vaccine groups, reduced overall vaccine coverage, and a crisis of public trust, exacerbated by government dissemination of disinformation through official channels. This paper (...) examines the interplay between government authorities and disinformation in Brazil, identifying key pitfalls and actors instrumental in maintaining public trust. Given that trustworthy sources of information are foundational to effective infodemic management, the collaboration of medical scientific societies, government entities, and national and international agencies is essential for a robust response. Necessary investments include (1) implementing epidemiological surveillance through social listening; (2) establishing a transparent, efficient, and agile communication strategy from public health authorities; and (3) enforcing stringent regulations and accountability measures for online disinformation. (shrink)

Viral modernity is a concept based upon the nature of viruses, the ancient and critical role they play in evolution and culture, and the basic application to understanding the role of information and forms of bioinformation in the social world. The concept draws a close association between viral biology on the one hand, and information science on the other – it is an illustration and prime example of bioinformationalism that brings together two of the most powerful forces that now drive (...) cultural evolution. The concept of viral modernity applies to viral technologies, codes and ecosystems in information, publishing, education and emerging knowledge systems. This paper traces the relationship between epidemics, quarantine, and public health management and outlines elements of viral-digital philosophy based on the fusion of living and technological systems. We discuss Covid-19 as a ‘bioinformationalist’ response that represents historically unprecedented level of sharing information from the sequencing of the genome to testing for a vaccination. Finally, we look at the US response to Covid-19 through the lens of infodemics and post-truth. The paper is followed by three open reviews, which further refine its conclusions as they relate to philosophy and the notion of the virus as Pharmakon. (shrink)

In this paper, we critically consider the analogy between “infodemic” and “pandemic”, i.e. the spread of fake news about COVID-19 as a medial virus and the infection with the biological virus itself from the perspective of cultural evolutionary theory (CET). After confronting three major shortcomings of the ‘infodemic’ concept, we use CET as a background framework to analyze this phenomenon. To do so, we summarize which bi-ases are crucial for transmission in terms of cultural selection and how transmission (...) is restricted by filter bubbles or echo chambers acting as TRIMS (transmission isolating mechanisms) post “infection”, which isolate false from trustworthy scientific information in the context of the Corona pandemic. This is followed by a demonstration of the threat to biological fitness posed by the effects of an infection with fake news, which leads to a reduced willingness to vaccinate and follow health measures. We identify fake news on Covid as pseudoscience, trying to immunize itself from external influences. We then address the question of how to combat the infodemic. Since debunking strategies, such as warnings by fact-checking, have proven relatively ineffective in combating fake news, the inoculation theory from psychology might offer an alternative solution. Through its underlying ‘prebunking strategy’, which educates individuals about the risks and tactics of fake news prior to a potential infection, they could be ‘immunized’ in advance, similar to a virological vaccination. Although we recognize that the pandemic/infodemic analogy is in fact far from perfect, we believe that CET could provide a theoretical underpinning in order to give much more semantic depth to the concept ‘infodemic’. (shrink)

Trust in experts and institutions is declining. To interrogate this, we must distinguish between, on the one hand, irrational responses to otherwise trustworthy institutions, and, on the other hand, rational responses to evidence of institutional untrustworthiness. In this chapter we do two things: first, we briefly review some recent sociopsychological results brought to explain increasing distrust in expertise, and show that the explanations on offer suffer from two main weaknesses: the underlying conceptual frameworks are deficient, and the hypotheses put forth (...) have low prior plausibility, in that they imply highly implausible levels and spread of epistemic and practical irrationality. Second, we argue for an alternative hypothesis: often, distrust in expertise is the result of unjust hearer epistemic exclusion. This form of injustice occurs in cases in which, intentionally or negligently, hearers are not put in a position to come to know the content of the performed speech act. (shrink)

The global spread of the novel coronavirus is affected by the spread of related misinformation—the so-called COVID-19 Infodemic—that makes populations more vulnerable to the disease through resistance to mitigation efforts. Here, we analyze the prevalence and diffusion of links to low-credibility content about the pandemic across two major social media platforms, Twitter and Facebook. We characterize cross-platform similarities and differences in popular sources, diffusion patterns, influencers, coordination, and automation. Comparing the two platforms, we find divergence among the prevalence of (...) popular low-credibility sources and suspicious videos. A minority of accounts and pages exert a strong influence on each platform. These misinformation “superspreaders” are often associated with the low-credibility sources and tend to be verified by the platforms. On both platforms, there is evidence of coordinated sharing of Infodemic content. The overt nature of this manipulation points to the need for societal-level solutions in addition to mitigation strategies within the platforms. However, we highlight limits imposed by inconsistent data-access policies on our capability to study harmful manipulations of information ecosystems. (shrink)

The COVID-19 pandemic has been accompanied on social media by an explosion of information disorders such as inaccurate, misleading and irrelevant information. Countermeasures adopted thus far to curb these informational disorders have had limited success because these did not account for the diversity of informational contexts on social media, focusing instead almost exclusively on curating the factual content of user’s posts. However, content-focused measures do not address the primary causes of the infodemic itself, namely the user’s need to post (...) content as a way of making sense of the situation and for gathering reactions of consensus from friends. This paper describes three types of informational context—weak epistemic, strong normative and strong emotional—which have not yet been taken into account by current measures to curb down the informational disorders. I show how these contexts are related to the infodemic and I propose measures for dealing with them for future global crisis situations. (shrink)

Trust in experts and institutions is declining. To interrogate this, we must distinguish between, on the one hand, irrational responses to otherwise trustworthy institutions, and, on the other hand, rational responses to evidence of institutional untrustworthiness. In this chapter we do two things: first, we briefly review some recent sociopsychological results brought to explain increasing distrust in expertise, and show that the explanations on offer suffer from two main weaknesses: the underlying conceptual frameworks are deficient, and the hypotheses put forth (...) have low prior plausibility, in that they imply highly implausible levels and spread of epistemic and practical irrationality. Second, we argue for an alternative hypothesis: often, distrust in expertise is the result of unjust hearer epistemic exclusion. This form of injustice occurs in cases in which, intentionally or negligently, hearers are not put in a position to come to know the content of the performed speech act. (shrink)

Several studies have lately revealed that social media conceal at least three dangerous pitfalls. Firstly, social media can negatively impact sociopolitical processes in advanced liberal democracies by becoming vehicles for the spread of false information that augments political polarization (Lee et al. 2017; Ostillio 2018). Secondly, as a result of the first point, social mediacan rapidly become a source of incorrect beliefs for those subjects with low digital literacy (Guess et al. 2019). Thirdly, because of the first and second points, (...) intentionally deceitful manipulations of social media content are potent generators of information cascades that increase group polarizations across groups of vulnerable social media users (Jang and Kim2018, Wang et al. 2018, Colliander 2019). These findings support the claim that the circulation of biased content on social media potentially threatens sociopolitical stability in liberal Western democracies (Duffy 2018; Sunstein 2018). Although this claim is far from being speculative, as shown by the FacebookFile investigations (Wall Street Journal 2019) and the center for humane technology’s recen tresearch, it introduces a thorny dilemma regarding the founding principles of liberal Western democracies. Namely, should Western legislators limit free speech by introducing severe penalties for those who spread fake news and the likes on social media? Or should they let the free market autonomously produce efficient technology allowing people to identify biased social media content?In other words, is a libertarian solution to the plight of online fake news and the like preferable to adequate legislation that punishes those who spread such content? Though appealing, it is unrealistic to believe that the free market can resolve this problem. On the other hand, it is realistic to suppose that Western governments should engage in a merciless battle against biased social media content. For instance, following the publication of the Report of the independent High level Group on fake news and online disinformation in 2018, the European Union introduced new directives to limit the spread of fake news online in 2021, when the Covid19 pandemic started fading. Although initiatives as such might look like limitations of free speech, there is solid philosophical ground to defend such initiatives. To prove this contention, we resort to Hobbes’s (1651, Part II, §18 and §29) argument that humans can avoid falling back into the Hobbesian state of war only if they stipulate a covenant. Specifically, we appeal to Hobbes’s (1651) argument in favor of bestowing the sovereign the right to ban those seditious doctrines that might undermine peace and sociopolitical stability in the Hobbesian Commonwealth. In this regard, we show that the Hobbesian covenant resolves conflict among humans in the same way a correlated equilibrium limits noncooperation in game theory. Namely, like game theory players, citizens enjoy greater welfare whenever they observe rules that mitigate conflict (Slomp 2010). Accordingly, we argue that citizens would be better off only if Western governments introduced severe penalties for those who intentionally spread fake news. Notably, we argue that effective regulation would create disincentives for spreading biased content and incentives for spreading truthful content. Furthermore, we argue that effective regulation against online fake news would assuage the polarizing effects of online availability cascades on social networks. Importantly, we provide empirical evidence supporting these claims by showing that the lack of effective regulation led the American government to miserably fail to contain the devasting effects of the online infodemic (i.e., the epidemic of false online information)that took place during the first two waves of the Covid19 pandemic (Evanega et al. 2020, Milosh et al. 2020). (shrink)

This special theme issue of Big Data & Society presents leading-edge, interdisciplinary research that focuses on examining how health-related information is circulating on social media. In particular, we are focusing on how computational and Big Data approaches can help to provide a better understanding of the ongoing COVID-19 infodemic and to develop effective strategies to combat it.

In the era of rapid information exchange, engineers and computer scientists are not merely creators of technology but vital players in the shaping of public discourse, including in the context of serious health threats like the COVID-19 pandemic. Focusing on the dis/misinformation surrounding public health risks, this work will dissect the mechanisms that enable disinformation and explore how design decisions, algorithmic biases, and lack of regulation contribute to the spread of false information. Design decisions that include simplified sharing mechanisms, limited (...) word counts, and basing the platforms in the sharing of emotional stories drive confirmation biases and discourage fact-checking. Users are further trapped by their past behaviors in algorithm-based echo chambers that repeat false information. These effects are solidified by failed regulation attempts and backfire effects, as well as barriers to regulation from organizations. Thus, the built infrastructure and embedded algorithms of these digital platforms create breeding grounds for disinformation. By indirectly governing social listening, engineers and computer scientists can actively influence the distribution and credibility of information, thus impacting public trust and health decisions. This work will further analyze the professional, ethical, and human rights responsibilities of the engineering profession as architects of social media and other digital platforms. In Ontario, Canada, the engineering profession’s specific responsibilities include statutory duties to serve the public interest, ethical obligations that are both statutory and normative, and compliance with laws related to privacy, human rights, and communication. This work contends that as a player in infodemics, engineering ethics education must shift away from a rules-based approach to instead prioritize social responsibility and foster engagement with societal and political dimensions of technology and its consequences. (shrink)

On 20 May 2025, the 78th World Health Assembly adopted the World Health Organization’s Pandemic Agreement (PA). With the benefit of lessons learnt from the COVID-19 pandemic, the PA rightly focuses on advancing equity, but we are concerned that the PA appears to apply equity narrowly as distributive justice and neglects epistemic justice. Using infodemics and antimicrobial resistance (AMR) as examples, we argue that the PA misses epistemic architectures. We first explain why infodemics are an important public health concern that (...) the PA seeks to address, even though it does not clearly mention them. We then explain why equity must be interpreted to include epistemic justice. Using infodemics as an example, we subsequently discuss how the epistemic architecture of the PA on infodemics will need to be set out clearly as an annex to the PA or through the adoption of an additional protocol. We note in particular that the PA could help to draw together different normative and human rights approaches and frameworks to meet the requirements of epistemic justice. A similar challenge applies to AMR as an epistemically complex phenomenon, and our argument is that a global response to AMR will require a just and equitable epistemic architecture that the PA could lay the foundation for. (shrink)

Genocide as a part of nation or ethnic group extermination process is not a well-defined concept. Its meaning is understood intuitively. When law intervenes, the issue of defining the term comes back. Nevertheless, the Polish nation has been recognized as subjected to genocide activities during the Second World War by the Nazi Germany and Soviet Union. The paper focuses on the genocide against mainly one group of Poles that is to say foresters. The martyrologic evidence proves that foresters were an (...) occupation group which for a variety of reasons suffered most. The research carried out in this respect by the National Forests in Poland has revealed that over 20% of pre-war staff of the institution actually lost their lives. They were killed by the German and Soviet occupiers, as well as the Ukrainian Insurgent Army. In the eastern parts of Poland foresters and their families were deported and sent to various labour and extermination camps e.g. in Siberia. The aim of the paper is to present the scale of genocide with the main emphasis on genocide against foresters. The definition of genocide provided by Lemkin, who coined the term, is a starting point for the analysis. The main research methods included the analysis of pertinent literature and source materials as well as the semiotic analysis of genocide circumstances. The thesis put forward by the authors is that foresters due to their education, practical skills, professional experience and insight knowledge turned out to be the group especially vulnerable and subjected to extermination on purpose. (shrink)

The article deals with the socio-cultural nature of information and studies its role in increasing global turbulence. Based on the methodological grounds put forward by A. Toffler, S. Moscovici, N. Chomsky, R. Patzlaff, O. Aronson, dialectical and systemic methods, the authors argue that the infodemic roots in stereotypical thinking generated by mass culture, as well as informatization and computerization of social relations. Mass culture contributed to a decrease in the level of critical thinking and caused the so-called ‘clip consciousness’. (...) The paper substantiates the idea that the infodemic became most evident during the coronavirus pandemic, and the spread of hybrid and information wars within the world scale. The infodemic organically correlates with the world of post-truth, where a person does not seek the truth but up-to-date information. The fact of whether the information is true or not in such a context becomes secondary to the cliché of the stereotypical consciousness of an individual, social group, or society as a whole. (shrink)

This paper considers what a human rights–based approach to the use of social listening to counter infodemics during a serious health threat might entail, using COVID-19 as a primary example. The paper considers social listening in the context of human rights including health, life, free speech, and privacy, and outlines what a rights-compliant form of social listening to infodemics might entail. The paper argues that human rights offer guardrails against illicit and unethical forms of social listening as well as signposts (...) towards a more equitable, ethical, and effective public health tool. The paper first expands on the human rights dimensions of COVID-19, infodemics, and social listening. Second, it considers the human rights dimensions of social listening in relation to rights to health, life, and free speech, given international human rights law principles for limiting these rights. Finally, using this framework, the paper poses four key questions to frame a rights-based approach to social listening: Why do we listen? How do we listen? Who do we listen to and who is doing the listening? And what are the outcomes of such listening? (shrink)

The COVID-19 pandemic triggered the first global “Infodemic” in the era of social media. Understanding how governments deal with the negative impacts of the infodemic has become a priority. This paper uses the theoretical framework of the Elaboration Likelihood Model to explore mechanisms for alleviating panic associated with the infodemic. It considers, in particular, the quality of information circulated on Government Social Media as the central route and local government trust as the peripheral route. An empirical study (...) was conducted using data from a focus group interview and a questionnaire survey collected within the first three weeks following the citywide lockdown of Wuhan, China. The results show that as: Quality of GSM information does not significantly reduce public panic, but local government trust significantly increases people’s pandemic prevention knowledge; Pandemic prevention knowledge is a critical mediator between information quality of GSM and public panic, as well as local government trust and public panic; and Information quality of GSM significantly increases people’s trust in local governments. This paper contributes to the literature on infodemic and government social media and provides implications for practice. (shrink)

Information, as well as freedom of expression and freedom of the media are essential for democratic society and fundamental characteristic of modern states. The year 2020 will be remembered as a year of pandemic caused from Covid-19 (coronavirus) and a year of response to unexpected challenge that the spread of the virus caused. In the times of pandemic and any type of crisis, the media always plays a key role in informing the public all over the Globe. This paper aims (...) to make theoretical descriptive research and analysis of the influence of coronavirus on news consumption, the role of media in communication and presentation of important developments during pandemic. The authors present an overview of the media system and the latest developments in the EU in preventing fake news related to the pandemic. We conclude that media plays key role in informing the citizens during pandemic and therefore they have increased responsibility in providing reliable information. At the same time, since the beginning of the Covid-19 pandemic, the media have been challenged with parallel outbreaks of disinformation and misinformation about the virus, ranging from fake coronavirus cures, false claims and harmful health advice to wild conspiracy theories. Disinformation can in turn speed up the spread of disease, hinder effective public health responses, as well as create confusion, fear and distrust. We highlight the fundamental function of creating awareness regarding the topic based on facts, and the need of media for preventing panic and fostering people's understanding by ‘checking the source and information twice’. (shrink)

This position paper discusses emerging behavioral, social, and economic dynamics related to the COVID-19 pandemic and puts particular emphasis on two emerging issues: First, delayed effects (or second strikes) of pandemics caused by dread risk effects are discussed whereby two factors which might influence the existence of such effects are identified, namely the accessibility of (mis-)information and the effects of policy decisions on adaptive behavior. Second, the issue of individual preparedness to hazardous events is discussed. As events such as the (...) COVID-19 pandemic unfolds complex behavioral patterns which are hard to predict, sophisticated models which account for behavioral, social, and economic dynamics are required to assess the effectivity and efficiency of decision-making. (shrink)

The world is facing a once-in-a-lifetime situation: the COVID-19 pandemic. During the pandemic, the World Health Organization announced an infodemic as well. This infodemic caused infollution and sparked many controversies. Pandemics as extraordinary occurrences are always attractive to historians. However, infodemics and biased information threaten objective history-writing. Objectivity as it regards historians is already a much-discussed subject. In this commentary, the fundamental theories about objectivity are delineated. Second, the relationship between the infodemic and COVID-19 pandemic is explained. (...) Lastly, the problems regarding objectivity in the historiography of the COVID-19 pandemic are explored. (shrink)

Infodemics have emerged as a serious contemporary challenge to public health, especially in the context of the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. This paper conducts a narrative thematic analysis exploring the South Korean response to the public health risks caused by misinformation, critically examining the legal, social, and ethical dimensions of dealing with the difficulties posed by health misinformation, identifying the following key themes: limitations posed by existing law in South Korea, government policies as a response to the COVID-19 pandemic, self-regulation in (...) the private sector and mitigation of the social impacts of COVID-19 misinformation. The paper offers a thematic exploration of South Korea’s integrated policy response to health misinformation within the context of the global COVID-19 infodemic and highlights the South Korean effort to balance the protection of public health and welfare with citizen’s individual rights to freedom of expression and the necessity of flexibility and adaptive policies to effectively counter COVID-19 misinformation. It observes the importance of effective public health communication and provides insight useful for dealing with potential future challenges arising from the proliferation of health misinformation and mitigating the adverse impacts of infodemics on public health initiatives, using the example of South Korea. (shrink)

Infodemics fuel the proliferation of misinformation and disinformation, often outpacing the effectiveness of existing countermeasures. Current interventions—such as debunking and psychological inoculation—typically address either specific instances of false or misleading content or the known manipulative tactics through which such content spreads. While these approaches are effective and scalable, most remain inherently corrective and struggle to anticipate shifts in the disinformation landscape. In this paper, we argue for a theoretical shift in paradigm towards a proactive framework to address disinformation: we propose (...) a content-agnostic model grounded in the identification of recurring linguistic, narrative, logical, and critical thinking patterns that characterize manipulative disinformation prone to virality. By identifying these structural “fingerprints” of disinformation, our framework aims to open new avenues for a research agenda that could inform new inoculation strategies to promote individual and collective resilience. If inoculation provides the methodological foundation for building resistance to manipulation, then identifying structural “fingerprints” provides the core “antigens” that such intervention can target. This, in turn, could enable people to recognize and resist manipulation regardless of the topic, medium, or context through which manipulatory content is delivered. We argue that this approach may offer a sustainable path to building long-term resilience in the face of an evolving and increasingly complex and challenging information ecosystem. (shrink)

The article explores the concept of infodemics during the COVID-19 pandemic, focusing on the propagation of false or inaccurate information proliferating worldwide throughout the SARS-CoV-2 health crisis. We provide an overview of disinformation, misinformation and malinformation and discuss the notion of “fake news”, and highlight the threats these phenomena bear for health policies and national and international security. We discuss the mis-/disinformation as a significant challenge to the public health, intelligence, and policymaking communities and highlight the necessity to design measures (...) enabling the prevention, interdiction, and mitigation of such threats. We then present an overview of selected opportunities for applying technology to study and combat disinformation, outlining several approaches currently being used to understand, describe, and model the phenomena of misinformation and disinformation. We focus specifically on complex networks, machine learning, data- and text-mining methods in misinformation detection, sentiment analysis, and agent-based models of misinformation spreading and the detection of misinformation sources in the network. We conclude with the set of recommendations supporting the World Health Organization’s initiative on infodemiology. We support the implementation of integrated preventive procedures and internationalization of infodemic management. We also endorse the application of the cross-disciplinary methodology of Crime Science discipline, supplemented by Big Data analysis and related information technologies to prevent, disrupt, and detect mis- and disinformation efficiently. (shrink)

This article addresses a number of phenomena in the field of digital communication - disinformation, infodemics and conspiracy mania - that promote indifference regarding the distinction between truth and lies, fact and fiction, opinion and knowledge. They have thus decisively altered users' patterns of rationality and common sense and contributed to the rise of anti-democratic and anti-scientific positions. To address this complex problem, a systemic approach is provided that considers these phenomena to be factors that disturb the ethical-epistemic equilibrium between (...) uncertainty, trust and responsibility. After identifying a set of dynamics generated by these disruptive factors, three aspects are explored in depth: the polarisation and lack of a deliberative culture, the necessary correction of the social image of scientific practice, and the impact of the post-truth discourse. The article concludes with reflections on redefining the three key concepts of uncertainty, trust and responsibility in light of the demands of the digital sphere. (shrink)

Medical and public health professionals recommend wearing face masks to combat the spread of the coronavirus disease of 2019. While the majority of people in the United States support wearing face masks as an effective tool to combat COVID-19, a smaller percentage declared the recommendation by public health agencies as a government imposition and an infringement on personal liberty. Social media play a significant role in amplifying public health issues, whereby a minority against the imposition can speak loudly, perhaps using (...) tactics of verbal aggression taking the form of toxic language. We investigated the role that toxicity plays in the online discourse around wearing face masks. Overall, we found tweets including anti-mask hashtags were significantly more likely to use toxic language, while tweets with pro-mask hashtags were somewhat less toxic with the exception of #WearADamnMask. We conclude that the tensions between these two positions raise doubt and uncertainty around the issue, which make it difficult for health communicators to break through the clutter in order to combat the infodemic. Public health agencies and other governmental institutions should monitor toxicity trends on social media in order to better ascertain prevailing sentiment toward their recommendations and then apply these data-driven insights to refine and adapt their risk communication messaging toward mask wearing, vaccine uptake, and other interventions. (shrink)

The paper focuses on genocide and its multidimensional emanations. First, the authors present the definition of genocide and its types as elaborated by Lemkin : physical, political, social, cultural, economic, biological, religious, and finally moral genocide. Next, ten stages of genocide by Stanton are scrutinized with some emphasis placed on the verbal issues enabling polarization and dehumanization. The authors point out that modern means of communication, ubiquitous nowadays, make it possible to dehumanize and discriminate against groups of people on an (...) unprecedented scale. Therefore, hate speech and infodemic spread on the Internet, especially social media may be a skillfully used tool of lynch and genocide incitement. (shrink)

Amid the COVID-19 pandemic, a parallel crisis emerged in the form of an “infodemic,” where misinformation proliferated through social media at an unprecedented scale. This article delves into the evolving landscape of reliable and misinformation sources reporting on the pandemic, examining their communication dynamics. Leveraging a comprehensive data set encompassing 437,832 news published online by media organizations from January 2020 to December 2021, I employ structural change analysis and network-based natural language processing to explore these dynamics. The findings illuminate (...) the contrasting approaches adopted by reliable sources, which prioritize scientific discourse, and misinformation, which exhibits high topic volatility—rapid change in the focus—suggesting that misinformation sources frequently shift their attention to different topics. Notably, this highlights a deliberate strategy employed by misinformation purveyors, that is, creating false crises without authoritative resolutions, thereby fostering a sense of lack of control, chaos, and uncertainty. Furthermore, the sentiment and morality analysis of COVID-19 news reveal that reliable news tends to maintain a balanced and neutral tone, while misinformation often exhibits a highly negative and morally charged narrative. These results carry significant implications for devising effective social countermeasures against misinformation at various stages of the pandemic. (shrink)

Purpose Digital health literacy has emerged as a critical determinant of equitable healthcare delivery in the information society. This study aims to examine evolving trends, thematic patterns and ethical considerations, with a focus on global policy responses and technological developments in 2023–2025. Design/methodology/approach A systematic literature review was conducted using Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses guidelines. Seventy-two studies published between 2015 and 2025 (with a small number of earlier studies retained due to their continued conceptual and ethical (...) relevance) were selected through database searches (PubMed, Scopus, Web of Science) and manual reference checks. Data were extracted and synthesised thematically, integrating recent policy documents and conceptual analyses relevant to ethics and equity. Findings Five dominant themes emerged: access and infrastructure inequities; misinformation and infodemic management; usability and user-centred design; health data poverty; and ethical governance. While digital health tools proliferated globally, disparities in access, representation and trust remain significant. Developments from 2023 to 2025 (e.g. artificial intelligence-driven health chatbots, TikTok-based health campaigns and updated World Health Organization infodemic guidelines) not only offer opportunities but also introduce new risks. Research limitations/implications The findings position digital health literacy as a core ethical construct within information systems and health policy scholarship, extending digital divide theory beyond access and skills to include justice, autonomy and data representation. This reframing underscores the need to integrate ethical governance and power asymmetries into models of digital health adoption. Practical implications Policymakers and health system designers should embed equity-by-design principles into digital health initiatives, prioritising inclusive usability, misinformation mitigation and representative data practices. Co-ordinated regulatory frameworks and targeted literacy interventions are essential to ensure emerging digital health technologies reduce, rather than reproduce, health inequalities. Originality/value This systematic review contributes to the discourse on information ethics in healthcare by explicitly linking digital health literacy to principles of justice, autonomy and beneficence. It offers a comprehensive synthesis that is policy-oriented, globally comparative and grounded in the latest literature. (shrink)

The concept of the ‘infodemic’ has become a popular explanation for the rejection of anti-COVID-19 crisis governance measures. In this paper, we argue that infodemic is an inherent property of society under free institutions misused to pursue an epistemically vicious political epistemology. Furthermore, we provide an alternative account of political epistemology of COVID-19 governance and popular resistance to it. Namely, we argue that 1) pandemics represent a complex problem, and some level of resistance to governance which restricts liberties (...) while informed by ongoing scientific and political learning processes is inevitable, and 2) the resistance is exacerbated by the history of technocratization of governance and the exclusionary socio-economic inequalities which condition political and epistemic deficiencies easily exploitable by the political entrepreneurs of right-wing populism, particularly under the conditions of social media which gamifies public discourse. Thus, we argue, the correct response to the cultures of rejection of anti-COVID-19 measures is to change the underlying political and economic conditions and not to limit speech or restrict franchise as the infodemic diagnosis suggests. (shrink)

The media is crucial in managing public health crises like the COVID-19 pandemic. The pandemic prompts researchers to design and implement fast, efficient research. They cause an infodemic in society by disseminating unprofessional and hasty information. This study examines the practical challenges of publicizing medical research and health data during the COVID-19 pandemic. This study used a qualitative approach and a content analysis research method. The data were collected using purposeful sampling and expert deep semi-structured interviews. After this step, (...) all data were coded using open, axial, and selective coding instructions. Eventually, 36 codes and 4 categories were extracted from the data analysis. Four main categories were obtained. These include "establishing official information-delivery centers," "developing a mechanism to confront misinformation distribution," "establishing an independent council for decision-making in the public health and media," and "executive issues specific to the pandemics." Our country has no official structure for providing information, and the independent policy-making council still needs to be implemented. We recommend that the Ministry of Health and Medical Education and Media establish official information-delivery centers. Physicians and researchers need ethical training and sensitivity to supervise information dissemination effectively. (shrink)

The pandemic of the 21st century has disrupted the existence of humans and other living beings. In this "new reality", peace research provides an indispensable theoretical framework for interpretating the present and the future (prospects). Thus, from this interdisciplinary field, resorting to a logical and hermeneutic analysis of events (through representative examples and situations), the different types of violence are introduced, as they have been developed by their main theorists. Our current situation and its vicissitudes are analysed, with emphasis on (...) education, communication (infodemic), health conditions, and current practices of discrimination, as well as the unnecessary military metaphors used to talk about the disease. The typology of peace is used as a counterpoint, mainly following Johan Galtung´s model. Therefore, it is postulated that with the contribution of Philosophy for Peace, it will be possible to promote the actions, ideas, and virtues necessary to counteract the old and new harmful practices, developing alternatives such as solidarity, ataraxia, communicative justice, empathy, and environmentalism, in transit towards the Culture of Peace and Gaia Peace. The reflection on current needs and actions leads us to conclude that vaccines alone are not enough to overcome the pandemic. (shrink)

The messy politics of combating the COVID-19 pandemic, compounded by the confusion caused by the global (dis)infodemic, have propelled conspiracism from the fringes of society into the public mainstream. Despite the growing political impact of digitally enabled conspiracy theories, they are predominantly delegitimized on three fronts – as psychopathology, pseudoscience, and/or parapolitics. In contrast, this article employs three non-pathologizing conceptual counteroffers borrowed from critical theory, deconstructionist historiography, and citizenship studies – namely, cognitive mapping, narrative emplotment, and performative citizenship – (...) to politicize conspiracy theorizing ‘from below’. Using QAnon as a case-in-point, the article introduces two novel concepts that invite a sociological approach to conspiracism: first, the epistemic communities of the unreal, which designates the participatory, interactive, and decentralized nature of collaboratively creating unreal explanations of the real world; and second, grassroots conspiracism, which denotes the ways in which these bottom-up, horizontal, and collective meaning-making practices and knowledge-production processes are expanding spaces of and for politics. (shrink)

Social listening has emerged as a powerful tool for bridging the gap between public health messaging and the diverse needs of communities. Its focus, however, has primarily centered on monitoring social media platforms for public health communication and managing infodemics, thereby neglecting a considerable segment of the population, especially in low- and middle-income countries, with no internet access. Within low- and middle-income countries, established social and cultural norms and financial constraints contribute to gender disparities in both access and social acceptance (...) of educational attainment and mobile phone use by women. Our research explores the influence of gender and socio-economic status on engagement with social media and its use as an information source. We use two case studies involving urban and rural settings in India. In the first case study, the surveyed sample in the urban setting comprised 1565 men and 1133 women employed in the call center industry across five cities in India. In the second case study, a total of 723 men and 748 women were surveyed in the rural Karnataka region in India. Our key findings indicate that women tend to use social media platforms less frequently than men for accessing news, and their economic status and caste shape their reliance on social media for essential health information. These findings underscore the necessity to integrate both online and offline data sources in social listening and health communication efforts, in order to mitigate the digital divide within communities. (shrink)

For risk and crisis communication in health emergencies and for the management of infodemics, now is the time to intervene. A time that precedes the arrival of the next health emergency and a time...

Exact solutions of epidemic models are critical for identifying the severity and mitigation possibility for epidemics. However, solving complex models can be difficult when interfering conditions from the real-world are incorporated into the models. In this paper, we focus on the generally unsolvable adaptive susceptible-infected-susceptible epidemic model, a typical example of a class of epidemic models that characterize the complex interplays between the virus spread and network structural evolution. We propose two methods based on mean-field approximation, i.e., the first-order mean-field (...) approximation and higher-order mean-field approximation, to derive the exact solutions to ASIS models. Both methods demonstrate the capability of accurately approximating the metastable-state statistics of the model, such as the infection fraction and network density, with low computational cost. These methods are potentially powerful tools in understanding, mitigating, and controlling disease outbreaks and infodemics. (shrink)

This article provides an analytical review of the collective monograph “Science Communication and Trust”, edited by Antoinette Fage-Butler, Loni Ledderer, and Kristian H. Nielsen. The monograph is distinguished by its interdisciplinary scope and by the integration of both theoretical and empirical approaches. Drawing on one of the book’s central perspectives, the review foregrounds the contemporary socio-epistemological understanding of (dis)trust as a complex, multidimensional, and context-dependent phenomenon, moving beyond the simplistic binary of “trust versus distrust”. I focus on the conceptualization of (...) non-binary (dis)trust – how this perspective is articulated throughout the chapters and how different forms and dynamics of (dis)trust are illustrated through concrete empirical approaches, including quantitative and qualitative research, case studies, and discourse analysis. The study highlights the authors' re-examination of scientific denialism, viewing it as a socially and narratively constructed process in which a specific type of trust – embodied by the “dissident expert” – emerges as a symbol of epistemic democracy. In conclusion, I discuss both strengths and limitations of the book: on the one hand, its non-binary framework enables a nuanced analysis of trust and distrust as they actually circulate in society; on the other hand, this approach can sometimes result in postmodern ambivalence and a lack of clear answers to the challenges considered. Overall, the article emphasizes the theoretical and practical value of the book for scholars in STS, practitioners, and everyone interested in the complexities of public (dis)trust in science in the context of infodemics and socio-political transformations. (shrink)

The goal of this article is to argue that social-media companies ought to remove misinformation from their platforms. I begin by outlining four kinds of harms that misinformation can produce. In the following section, I clarify the conceptual foundations of this duty, including the difference between purposeful and general social-media sites, influenced by Lavinia Marin’s recent research, and the correct characterization of online debates about topics such as climate change and vaccination.

Concerns over the toxicity of social media have prompted philosophers to develop a new branch of epistemology focused on the epistemic evaluation of cognitive environments: Environmental Epistemology (though we will mostly use the descriptor, ‘Digital Epistemology’). Traditional epistemology is about the evaluation of persons or groups and this overlooks the evaluation of things and systems in their own right. Epistemic environments – spaces, real and digital, where people interact and communicate – are said to be governed by new specific and (...) general epistemic norms to be philosophically investigated. This paper surveys various proposals within Environmental (or Digital) Epistemology with the aim of clarifying what exactly is being proposed, whether is it worth the attention of philosophers, and how this viewpoint might be defended and applied. Our discussion includes critiques of healthy, neutral, and toxic epistemic environments, environmental resources, epistemic health, pollution, hostility, vulnerability, and flooding. While acknowledging that epistemic environments, including digital media, can inhibit our attempts to reason and understand, we are less confident that this emerging viewpoint has been adequately developed and motivated. Current epistemological frameworks – especially Reliabilist – already have the means to address questions about how to epistemically evaluate informational environments. (shrink)

This study provides an overview of social media usage among researchers in Malaysia and examines factors affecting their use for science communication. The online questionnaire gathered the opinions of 425 researchers from over 20 science disciplines. The descriptive analysis highlighted usage preferences for 10 commonly used social media, while statistical analysis in particular MANOVA and correlation analysis, identified significant factors influencing researchers’ social media use. Up to 62% of respondents believe that social media is more effective in reaching the public, (...) compared to other media. WhatsApp, Facebook, YouTube, Google Scholar, and ResearchGate are routinely used or perceived as beneficial to use. However, Twitter, Instagram, WordPress, and LinkedIn are seldom used because they are less preferred for science communication. Seniority, perceived importance, and perceived credibility are significantly correlated with both intention and actual use. Meanwhile, age and experience are significantly correlated with actual use, but not the intention. Researchers are likely to post and share more on social media if they believe that science communication is important or if they are credible enough to present a scientific consensus. This study offered important insights into the perceptions, concerns, and factors influencing their use for science communication. By determining the perceptions, concerns and motivators affecting researchers, the findings shed light on effective ways to promote researchers’ use of social media to communicate scientific knowledge. (shrink)

The COVID-19 pandemic disrupted academic life worldwide for students as well as educators. The purpose of this study is to shed light on the collective adversity experienced by international medical students and bioethics educators caused by the COVID-19 pandemic in relation to both personal and academic life. The authors wrote their subjective memoirs and then analyzed them using a collective autoethnography method in order to find the similarities and differences between their experiences. The results reveal some consistent patterns in experience (...) that are captured in two metaphors: Falling apart and Bouncing back. “Falling apart” involves the breakdown of daily lives during the initial stages of the pandemic, shown through subjective quotes contextualized through the authors’ commentary. The consensus is that returning home and the transition to remote education were the two main reasons for the breakdown. “Bouncing back” encompasses the authors’ recovery after the initial breakdown, achieved by acquiring new information about the virus, discovering how to continue their hobbies at home, such as working out or dancing, and learning to adjust exam expectations. At the educational level, the bioethics course, which guided students through the ethical dilemmas of the pandemic, played an important role in the recovery/bouncing back process. For that reason, we report on how it was to learn about and teach this subject during the pandemic, and how bioethics knowledge was applied for better understanding and coping with some of the moral dilemmas related to the pandemic. The study testifies to the importance of bioethics education during a pandemic and explains how this can contribute to shaping the moral resilience of future medical practitioners. (shrink)

As digital information environments become increasingly dynamic, the spread of misinformation presents a fundamental challenge to content governance, public trust, and knowledge-based systems. Traditional techniques, such as rule-based fact-checking and manual content moderation, are often inadequate for real-time, high-volume digital platforms. This chapter introduces agent-based modelling (ABM) as a core computational approach for simulating the complex, adaptive, and often non-linear behaviours that underpin infodemics. The chapter begins by highlighting the limitations of conventional statistical models in capturing the stochastic and exploratory (...) tendencies of human information-seeking behaviour. It then outlines how ABM provides a bottom-up simulation architecture in which heterogeneous agents interact within rule-governed environments to produce emergent belief dynamics and social effects. The use of network topologies to represent information diffusion, and the incorporation of reinforcement learning (RL) algorithms to model adaptive agent behaviour, allow for the simulation of belief transitions, echo chambers, and misinformation cascades in a way that mirrors real-world complexity. This chapter sets the foundation for thinking about infodemics not as isolated data points, but as complex systems, where agent diversity, uncertainty, and feedback loops must be accounted for in both analysis and intervention. Through ABM and RL, Computational Infodemiology moves from observation to simulation, enabling the testing of strategies for misinformation mitigation in silico before real-world implementation. (shrink)

This chapter introduces the foundational concepts, theoretical underpinnings, and contextual relevance of Computational Infodemiology, an emerging interdisciplinary field concerned with the modelling, detection, and intervention of information disorder in digital ecosystems. Beginning with an exploration of the term infodemic, its origins, evolution, and contemporary manifestations, the chapter distinguishes between information voids, misinformation, and disinformation, showing how these phenomena interact under conditions of uncertainty, algorithmic amplification, and social stress. The discussion advances by outlining how algorithmic feedback loops reinforce engagement-driven content (...) exposure, facilitating echo chambers and confirmation bias within fragmented digital publics. The chapter then anchors the epistemological and ethical rationale of Computational Infodemiology through three key theoretical pillars: systemic intervention theory, which provides a critical systems framework for contextual boundary analysis and stakeholder inclusion; social norm formation theory, which explains how collective beliefs emerge, stabilise, and become internalised in digital environments, and Martha Nussbaum’s spheres of influence, which situate belief dynamics within overlapping sociocultural, institutional, and digital domains of authority and trust. Together, these frameworks underscore the necessity of moving beyond isolated content moderation efforts toward ethically grounded, reflexive, and system-aware approaches to information integrity. The chapter concludes by positioning Computational Infodemiology as a vital response to the epistemic challenges of our time, one that demands not only computational tools, but also sociopolitical sensitivity, participatory design, and pluralistic engagement with diverse knowledge systems. (shrink)

Understanding and simulating belief systems within an infodemic context requires more than detecting misinformation. An integrated framework for agent representation, network structure, interaction logic, and behavioural reinforcement is needed. Chapter 3 introduces the conceptual and architectural foundation for modelling belief systems in Computational Infodemiology. The chapter begins by establishing the scale-free network topology as a structural proxy for real-world social media dynamics, given its capacity to model the highly unequal distribution of influence and connectivity inherent in digital platforms. Each (...) node in this network is defined as an autonomous agent capable of adopting and transitioning between different belief states, guided by a combination of internal rules and external stimuli. The framework specifies how reinforcement learning strategies govern agent behaviour, allowing them to adapt based on rewards, punishments, and evolving network conditions. This includes the role of state transitions, rules of engagement, and belief convergence or polarisation pathways. Emphasis is placed on the importance of visualising agent states and decision-making, not only for model validation but for interpretability and intervention simulation. Ultimately, this framework enables a structured yet dynamic approach to representing and analysing the evolution of beliefs under complex infodemic conditions, bridging the gap between computational architecture and socio-behavioural realism. (shrink)