Summary of WHO report "Guidance note: Advancing Infodemic Management within Risk Communication and Community Engagement in the WHO European Region", to be released November 2022

1. Guidance note: Advancing Infodemic
Management within Risk
Communication and Community
Engagement in the WHO European
Region
SJ Terp, 2022-11-08

2. Guidance contents
What is this thing?
Acknowledgements
Glossary and abbreviations
Executive summary
Introduction
Theoretical framework
Defining an infodemic
Understanding an infodemic: the information ecosystem
The information landscape
The risk landscape
The response landscape
Measuring IM response
What can we do?
Advancing infodemic management within RCCE
Infodemic management within the emergency cycle
Infodemic management within RCCE core capacities and work
streams
Conclusion
Annex 1 – IM quick-start guides
Annex 2 – Further reading
Annex 3 – Infodemic Management in major WHO Offices
Annex 4 – Methodology
References

3. The Infodemic
● Covid isn’t serious
○ Covid doesn’t exist
○ Individual medical targets
● Medical scams
○ MMS prevents
○ Alcohol prevents
○ etc
● Origin myths
○ Escaped bioweapon
○ Country x created Covid
○ US soldiers took Covid to China
● Resolution myths
○ Country y has a Covid cure
● Crossover with conspiracies
○ Covid and 5G
○ Covid and antivax / anti-Gates
○ Helicopters spraying for covid
○ Depopulation conspiracy
● Crossover with ‘freedom rights’
○ Anti- stayathome
○ 2nd amendment
○ anti-immigration
○ Usual far-rightwing groups
● Geopolitics
○ China, Iran: covert + overt
○ “Blue check” disinfo

4. Conspiracy theories
• Alternative explanations for events that are not always founded in reality
Disinformation
• Incorrect, misleading, or misattributed information circulated with a specific, often political, agenda. It
includes incorrect, misleading, or misattributed information, but it can also include information that is true,
but artificially amplified, and the manipulation of individuals’ information seeking, sharing, and
consumption behaviours
Misinformation
• Incorrect, misleading, or misattributed information circulated without underlying agenda
Rumours
• Unverified information
4
Inaccurate information

5. Information and trust
• RCCE: core capacity in IHR and 8+ years of
work in WHO/Europe
• Listening and rumour management long-
standing elements of work
• Infodemic management changes this from
building trust to managing trust in an
environment where it’s being eroded
5
Risk Communication and Community
Engagement

6. Infodemic Response Lifecycle
6

7. Response mapped to capacity

8. Response mapped to RCCE streams

9. Community response is key

10. Common Mitigations
Increase community resilience
● Media literacy training
● Identify and train influencers
● Repair broken social connections
Improve information landscape
● Find and fill information voids
● Redteam and prebunk narratives
● Health-label disinformation sites
Improve response capability
● Find and coordinate responders
● Improve reviewers’ information
sources
● Clarify and improve policies

11. Common Counters
Get timely alerts
● Update fact-checking databases
● Formalise alerting systems
● Coordinate tiplines
● Track narratives and artifacts
● Monitor for coordinated inauthentic activity
Countermessage
● Debunk (use carefully)
● Create and propagate counternarratives
● Amplify messages
● Coopt disinformation spaces
● Measure reach. Improve reach
Respond
● Account/content removal/limiting
● Work with partners orgs (platforms,
policy etc) on options from DISARM
counters list
Image: DISARM Blue, from disarm.foundation

12. Annex: Checklists and References

13. Information Capacity Building
Reuse disinformers’ tools against them:
● Go where the people are
○ Their places
○ Their languages
● Go where people search for information
○ Include their influencers
● Segment your audience
● Be present
● Be clear
● Influence, not fight
● Iterate

14. Thank You
@bodaceacat