Malhotra Pranav
University of Washington, USA.
Soc Media Soc. 2020 Aug 10;6(3):2056305120948224. doi: 10.1177/2056305120948224. eCollection 2020 Jul.
The panic and anxiety that accompanies a global pandemic is only exacerbated by the spread of misinformation. For COVID-19, in many parts of the world, such misinformation is circulating through globally popular mobile instant messaging services (MIMS) like WhatsApp and Telegram. Compared to more public social media platforms like Facebook and Twitter, these services offer private, intimate, and often encrypted spaces for users to chat with family members and friends, making it difficult for the platform to moderate misinformation on them. Thus, there is an enhanced onus on users of MIMS to curb misinformation by correcting their family and friends within these spaces. Research on understanding how such relational correction occurs in different parts of the globe will need to attend to how the nature of these interpersonal relationships and the cultural dynamics that influence them shape the correction process. Thus, as people increasingly use MIMS to connect with close relations to make sense of this global crisis, studying the issue of misinformation on these services requires us to adopt a relationship-centered and culturally informed approach.
全球大流行所伴随的恐慌和焦虑，只会因错误信息的传播而加剧。对于新冠疫情而言，在世界许多地方，此类错误信息正通过WhatsApp和Telegram等全球流行的移动即时通讯服务（MIMS）传播。与Facebook和Twitter等更具公共性的社交媒体平台相比，这些服务为用户提供了私密、亲近且通常加密的空间，以便与家人和朋友聊天，这使得平台难以对其上的错误信息进行管控。因此，MIMS的用户有更大的责任在这些空间内通过纠正家人和朋友来遏制错误信息。关于理解这种关系性纠正如何在全球不同地区发生的研究，将需要关注这些人际关系的本质以及影响它们的文化动态如何塑造纠正过程。因此，随着人们越来越多地使用MIMS与亲密关系的人联系以理解这场全球危机，研究这些服务上的错误信息问题要求我们采用以关系为中心且有文化依据的方法。
