Foreign Affairs

Unearthed WHO Proposal Calls For Adopting ‘Social Listening’ Techniques To Combat ‘Infodemic,’ Misinformation

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• The World Health Organization is advocating for “social listening” to prevent pandemics and “combat the infodemic,” according to a newly uncovered draft proposal. 
• The draft proposal states that the international response to the COVID-19 pandemic was a disaster and defines an “infodemic” as “too much information including false or misleading information … during a disease outbreak.”
• There are “ethical challenges, such as privacy and consent” when gathering information through “social listening,” the WHO said in a press release. 

A recently unearthed World Health Organization (WHO) draft proposal calls for the adoption of “social listening” in order to combat an “infodemic” that first emerged during the COVID-19 pandemic.

The May 22 draft proposal, first uncovered by The Public, acknowledges “the catastrophic failure of the international community in showing solidarity and equity in response to the coronavirus disease,” according to the WHO. It defines an “infodemic” as “too much information including false or misleading information … during a disease outbreak.”

The proposal calls on its 194 member states to “combat the infodemic, and tackle false, misleading, misinformation or disinformation.” The organization recommends “social listening” as one method to achieve this goal, which the WHO defines as “the process of gathering information about people’s questions, concerns, and circulating narratives and misinformation about health,” according to a February news release.

The WHO also developed a pilot project using artificial intelligence as another version of “social listening,” called “Early Artificial Intelligence–supported Response with Social Listening” (EARS), according to the paper. EARS automatically classifies information from publicly shared online communications in 20 countries and tracks trends.

There are “ethical challenges, such as privacy and consent” when gathering information through “social listening,” the WHO said in the press release. The organization brought together an “ethics expert panel” to address the issue as there is no current consensus on how to ethically engage in “social listening” and “infodemic management.”

Social listening would take place on social media as that is where people share public messages, according to a paper the WHO published in 2021.

WHO created policy briefs on 🔑 elements needed to end the #COVID19 emergency, incl.:
🔸vaccinating highest risk groups
🔸maintaining surveillance
🔸testing & sequencing
🔸clinical care
🔸public health measures
🔸engaging communities
🔸tackling infodemic
📌https://t.co/JCf1bY51yz pic.twitter.com/yLE1K0PD36

— World Health Organization (WHO) (@WHO) September 14, 2022

Numerous social media platforms, including Twitter, Facebook, Instagram and TikTok worked with the WHO to combat “misinformation” by guiding people to the global agency’s website, according to a tweet. Facebook and YouTube both censored information that went against the organization’s guidance.

The WHO said it was “extremely unlikely” that COVID-19 leaked from a lab and Facebook censored numerous posts asserting that COVID-19 was man-made until ending the policy in May 2021, according to The Wall Street Journal.

Additionally, the WHO draft proposal suggests “messaging strategies for the public to counteract misinformation, disinformation and false news, thereby strengthening public trust and promoting adherence to public health and social measures.” Moreover, it calls for research on the elements that obstruct “adherence” to pandemic measures such as “uptake and demand of vaccines, use of appropriate therapeutics, use of non-pharmaceutical interventions, and trust in science and government institutions.”

Further, it calls on countries to make sure clinical trials are “equitable” and foster “diversity” to improve “understanding of the safety and efficacy of new vaccines” for different groups.

The WHO established the Intergovernmental Negotiating Body (INB) to enable member states to write and negotiate measures to handle pandemics and it is slated to consider the proposal this month.

Avril Haines, the director of National Intelligence, told lawmakers in 2021 that the intelligence community had seen “indications” that China was working to influence the World Health Organization’s evaluation regarding the origins of COVID-19. Additionally, China denied access to crucial data for the WHO-led team’s COVID-19 origins investigation, and the country edited and approved the report before its release, the WSJ reported.

The WHO did not respond to the Daily Caller News Foundation’s request for comment.