Coronavirus: Ventilators

(asked on 26th April 2021) - View Source

Question to the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport:

To ask the Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, what steps his Department is taking to tackle the spread of misinformation to critically ill patients with covid-19 on the use of ventilators.


Answered by
Caroline Dinenage Portrait
Caroline Dinenage
This question was answered on 29th April 2021

The Government takes disinformation very seriously and DCMS is leading work across Government to tackle it. In response to the harmful disinformation and misinformation relating to Covid-19 we stood up the Cross-Whitehall Counter Disinformation Unit on 5 March 2020, which brings together cross-Government monitoring and analysis capabilities. Its primary function is to provide a comprehensive picture of the extent, scope and the reach of disinformation and misinformation linked to Covid-19, and to work with partners to stamp it out.

We are working closely with social media platforms to help them identify and take action to remove incorrect claims about the virus, including health misinformation and anti-vaccination content, in line with their revised terms and conditions. Major platforms have updated their terms of service and introduced new measures to tackle misinformation and disinformation related to Covid-19. Government welcomes such measures to ensure the public has access to reliable and trusted information.

We have also launched a toolkit with content designed to be shared via Whatsapp and Facebook community groups, as well as Twitter, Youtube and Instagram, to tackle false information spread through private channels. The campaign is fronted by trusted local community figures such as imams, pastors and clinicians in short, shareable videos which include simple tips on how to spot misinformation and what to do to stop its spread. This toolkit is based on the core principles of the SHARE checklist, which aims to increase audience resilience by educating and empowering those who see, inadvertently share and are affected by false and misleading information.

Reticulating Splines