Abstract
In this article we will address the topic of fake news (Peters, 2018), which represents a real threat to society and could be considered a public health issue. The fake news campaign that accompanied public communications during the pandemic was named, by the Worls Health Organization (2020), infodemic, considering that its purpose was to generate panic and create social and economic problems, which would seriously overcome the initial public health problem - namely that of the pandemic -, to destabilize both states and global alliances. From an ethical point of view, we must notice the negative impact of infodemic, both on public health and on humanity in general; this can lead to deviations from democracy and human rights and, ultimately, to the dehumanization of society through the emphasis on social anxiety and the exacerbation of desocializing fears, which increase social distancing far beyond the limit of the physical distancing necessary to combat the pandemic.
Highlights
Among the many texts that address the issue of infodemic during this period, we have chosen to discuss a text from the periodical Daily News, authored by Art Caplan and Kenneth Moch, entitledSpeculation in the Absence of Data that Can be Deadly‘, published on April 28, 2020; the article is about speculation in the absence of data, which can be fatal
The authors quoted above show that there are many people who want to take advantage of such moments, that have a maximum psychological load, in order to carry out an online PR campaign, personal brand promotions and to strengthen their personal image; they bring up the topic of the Coronavirus and the pandemic without taking into account the real information - which they often cannot understand, due to the lack of competencies in the field, be it medical or public health - without having concrete information about the evolution of the state of affairs and the pandemic; they modify the real information and present it either incomplete or taken out of context, so as to support their own points of view
Another article that we want to bring into the discussion is the one that was published on the Calea Europeană.ro website (Ion, 2020), according to which the UN has called upon countries to respect human rights in order to avoid a humanitarian catastrophe, whose effects would far outweigh the pandemic itself
Summary
The authors refrain from treating the issue of infodemic from the perspective of intentional fake news, which aims to mislead the population; rather, they deal with involuntary fake news, which occurs as a result of violating the ethics of publication, as a consequence of the desire that some authors have to stand out by being the first to publish information considered scientific, but which is not properly verified (Moch & Caplan, 2020). Adherence to the ethics of publishing and communicating science requires that a clear distinction be made between scientific results based on empirical data – obtained in the field or in a laboratory - and personal opinions, based on incomplete results or simple assumptions. News are not presented anymore for the purpose of journalistic activity, as the Kantian categorical imperative would require (Kant, 2007; 2010)
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