{"id":1252,"date":"2020-04-17T07:24:27","date_gmt":"2020-04-17T07:24:27","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/horizon.peachpuff-wolverine-566518.hostingersite.com\/?p=1252"},"modified":"2020-04-17T07:24:36","modified_gmt":"2020-04-17T07:24:36","slug":"the-dangers-of-misinformation-and-neglecting-linguistic-minorities-during-a-pandemic","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/scienceblog.com\/horizon\/1252\/the-dangers-of-misinformation-and-neglecting-linguistic-minorities-during-a-pandemic\/","title":{"rendered":"The dangers of misinformation and neglecting linguistic minorities during a pandemic"},"content":{"rendered":"
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By Fintan Burke<\/h5>\n

The rapidly changing coronavirus pandemic means governments and health authorities need to act fast. But medical advice \u2014 and pleas for help \u2014 are being hindered by language barriers and misinformation online. Improving communication for vulnerable communities in particular has become a race against time.<\/strong><\/h3>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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The pandemic has now led to roughly\u00a0half the world\u2019s population<\/a>\u00a0being ordered by their governments to stay at home. Social media use has jumped. Use of Facebook\u2019s messaging service has increased by\u00a0more than 50% in the hardest hit countries<\/a>. Daily Twitter use is\u00a0up 23%<\/a>.<\/p>\n

But all this increased traffic could be harmful. According to a\u00a02018 OECD<\/a>\u00a0report, wider internet access has exacerbated misinformation. The report found that misinformation devalues expert information and can have a \u2018devastating\u2019 impact on public order as governments struggle to correct rumours.<\/p>\n

\u2018I think one of the problems with social media is that it’s completely uncontrolled during such (a) crisis,\u2019 said Professor Harith Alani of the Knowledge Media Institute at the Open University, UK.<\/p>\n

The uncertainty surrounding coronavirus means people can fall victim to misinformation online, he says. \u2018(Misinformation) tends to be built around these gaps in our knowledge or build on certain emotions and fears,\u2019 he said.<\/p>\n

\u2018(People) start to lower the barrier to what they would normally believe in.\u2019<\/p>\n

Some of the bogus coronavirus stories Prof. Alani has found include fresh garlic being a cure, mosquitos transmitting the disease, the virus dying in temperatures above 25 degrees, or it being a man-made bioweapon.<\/p>\n

\u2018Most people don\u2019t understand that viruses evolve all the time and can spread rapidly the way they are, and prefer an easier explanation, such as that it was manmade,\u2019 he said.<\/p>\n

He warns that not all false information is easily disproven. \u2018The danger is that if people do believe them, then they will probably not take some other precautions that are effective.\u2019<\/p>\n

Response<\/strong><\/p>\n

Prof. Alani and his team are collecting false coronavirus stories as part of a\u00a0\u20ac47.5 million emergency call<\/a>\u00a0by the European Commission to contain the pandemic. The team works on a project called\u00a0HERoS<\/a>, which is looking at how select cities and countries in Asia and Europe are handling the pandemic\u00a0when it comes to communicating with the public. The project aims to see how\u00a0their response to and governance of\u00a0the\u00a0crisis\u00a0can be\u00a0improved.<\/p>\n

His team uses automatic algorithms to trawl through coronavirus-related social media content and compare it with trusted, fact-based sources such as the World Health Organization.<\/p>\n

The project aims to let policymakers and researchers see faster how misinformation gets shared as the pandemic spreads. It is also looking at how different governments try to tackle coronavirus-related misinformation, such as the UK\u2019s relaunched \u2018Don\u2019t Feed the Beast\u2019<\/a>\u00a0campaign and dedicated\u00a0task force<\/a>. Dr Alani hopes the project will provide more evidence about such policies\u2019 efficacy in halting misinformation.<\/p>\n

The algorithmic tools come from work Prof. Alani is doing as a partner in the\u00a0Co-Inform<\/a>\u00a0project, and were designed to help citizens, journalists and policymakers combat misinformation. The pandemic, he says, shows the need to boost people\u2019s \u2018information literacy\u2019.<\/p>\n

The project works with fact-checking charities such as the organisation\u00a0FactCheckNI<\/a>\u00a0in Northern Ireland. Co-Inform’s algorithm can both spot misinformation online and then quickly explain why the information is misleading or wrong.<\/p>\n

The project has already released an early web app called\u00a0MisinfoMe<\/a>, which lets people search the misinformation that may be linked to a Twitter account. It is also developing a web-browser plugin that will alert people that a site or link comes from an untrustworthy source.<\/p>\n

In a previous project called\u00a0COMRADES<\/a>, Prof. Alani\u2019s team also trained algorithms to automatically detect what help people are asking for on social media during crises. A project partner, a team from the University of Sheffield, UK, developed an algorithm to check the veracity of rumours of social media posts during a crisis situation. The algorithms, available on the project\u00a0website<\/a>, have attracted requests from multiple aid agencies for customised versions, he says.<\/p>\n

Different languages<\/strong><\/p>\n

Although COMRADES’ algorithms are multilingual, such algorithms can be impeded if countries\u2019 official communications neglect residents who speak a non-official language. \u2018What you see during crisis is that the content or the messages (are) coming from people in many different languages even within the same country,\u2019 said Prof. Alani.<\/p>\n

Sharon O\u2019Brien, a professor of Translation Studies at Dublin City University in Ireland, says that globally, few crisis policies acknowledge that communication needs to be in more than official languages to quickly reach a country\u2019s multicultural, multilingual population.<\/p>\n

\u2018Timely and accurate communication also means in a language that can be understood by minorities within your country,\u2019 she said.<\/p>\n

She and the team at a project called\u00a0INTERACT<\/a>\u00a0looked at how countries communicate to vulnerable culturally and linguistically diverse communities during times of crisis. These include migrants, refugees, tourists, sign language communities and people on business trips. Her team was consulted by officials in Wuhan in late January to make sure they were following best practice for foreign nationals in the city.<\/p>\n

These practices included recruiting translation students from local universities and liaising with embassies to help with translations. Public information videos were subtitled into multiple languages.<\/p>\n

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‘Timely and accurate communication also means in a language that can be understood by mininorities within your country.’<\/p>\n

Prof. Sharon O\u2019Brien, Dublin City University, Ireland<\/p>\n

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In her view, European countries did not translate their medical advice for linguistic minorities early enough. \u2018We could have already started translating the basic \u201chow to avoid (contracting coronavirus)\u201d type of information, and (in Europe) we weren’t doing that.\u2019<\/p>\n

The significance of official advice can also get lost if translated literally. \u2018With Covid-19 we are starting to hear that\u00a0\u201csocial distancing\u201d is not a concept that translates easily into other cultures,\u2019 she said, explaining that the anglophone term becomes ambiguous among non-English-speaking cultures that regularly socialise collectively.<\/p>\n

If people don\u2019t understand the messaging, says Prof. O\u2019Brien, they are more likely to contract the virus and spread it.<\/p>\n

Inadequate translation puts many within Europe’s multilingual landscape at risk.<\/p>\n

In Poland, the government\u00a0omitted\u00a0the\u00a0fact<\/a>\u00a0that testing and treatment for coronavirus\u00a0is also\u00a0free for foreigners<\/a>\u00a0in their translated documents.\u00a0Doctors in the country are\u00a0asking the government to publicise this information. A language barrier prevented a\u00a0Bangladeshi man\u00a0<\/a>from receiving help after he called emergency services in Madrid, Spain. He later died at home. In Germany, activists decried the lack of\u00a0official information<\/a>\u00a0in German sign language.<\/p>\n

Speed up<\/strong><\/p>\n

Prof. O\u2019Brien\u2019s project looked at the official emergency response guidelines of Ireland, the UK, the United States, Japan and New Zealand to see what multilingual crisis communication policies served immigrant and refugee communities best. One project aim was to show which policies speed up communication between first responders and those seeking help.<\/p>\n

Of the five countries researched, Prof. O\u2019Brien said that the United States has developed the most advanced crisis translation policy. The US Department for Homeland Security, which is responsible for disaster relief efforts, has a list of interpreters that can be called on in an emergency. \u2018This was the best practice that we had come across,\u2019 she said.<\/p>\n

In contrast, she says unprepared health services in Europe scramble for interpreters during a crisis. A country\u2019s approach depends on how mature their translation lobbies and rules are.<\/p>\n

She gives the example of Ireland, whose lack of translation policy has led to hospitals and lawyers turning to family members, even children, to interpret. This happens ad-hoc and not just in times of crisis, she says. \u2018The situation has, I imagine, become worse now that the (coronavirus) numbers in hospitals are escalating,\u2019 she said.<\/p>\n

Ethical problems also arise when untrained people are asked to interpret. \u2018As the person who’s been plucked to come in, it puts massive stress on you,\u2019 said Prof. O\u2019Brien. \u2018You might see things, hear things that you’re not prepared to see and hear.\u2019<\/p>\n

Prof O\u2019Brien notes that the deaf communities can be one of the most vulnerable in a crisis, as sign language is often mentioned only in passing in emergency response guidelines. Though she notes the Irish government has a\u00a0coronavirus interpreting service<\/a>\u00a0for deaf people.<\/p>\n

Machine translation<\/strong><\/p>\n

Machine translation tools could make a difference, according to Prof. O\u2019Brien, and should be developed for local languages in advance of the next crisis.<\/p>\n

The project has recently published its own \u2018Translation 101\u2019<\/a>\u00a0video guides developed alongside the New Zealand Red Crossaining for any community volunteers on the basics of translation and interacting with machine translation.<\/p>\n

\u2018These are for organisations who we know are asking people to translate in a crisis, but those people have no training whatsoever,\u2019 said Prof. O\u2019Brien. She hopes that volunteers will subtitle the course content for their own language communities.<\/p>\n

\u2018If we can get to a point where translation is not an afterthought, but is part of the crisis planning and an integrated part of crisis communication policy, I think we’d have made a big step forward.\u2019<\/p>\n

The research in this article was funded by the EU. If you liked this article, please consider sharing it on social media. <\/em><\/p>\n

Published on Horizon<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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The pandemic has now led to roughly\u00a0half … Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":298,"featured_media":1253,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"generate_page_header":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[118],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1252","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-social-sciences"],"yoast_head":"\nThe dangers of misinformation and neglecting linguistic minorities during a pandemic - Horizon Magazine Blog<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/scienceblog.com\/horizon\/1252\/the-dangers-of-misinformation-and-neglecting-linguistic-minorities-during-a-pandemic\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"The dangers of misinformation and neglecting linguistic minorities during a pandemic\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"By Fintan Burke The rapidly changing coronavirus pandemic means governments and health authorities need to act fast. 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