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ACADEMIA Letters COVID-19 infodemic and misinfodemic: A tale of India Vysakh C Dr. Rajendra Babu H “We’re not just fighting an epidemic; we’re fighting an infodemic” -Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus (WHO). The first case of the global pandemic COVID-19 reported in India on 27th January 2020 when a 20-year female returned from China to her native in Kerala (Andrews et al., 2020). Since the pandemic was little known to the world, various kinds of misinformation, rumours, hoax and conspiracy theories have been rounded all over the world especially in a developing country like India (Memon & Carley, 2020; Alimardani & Elswah, 2020). Because of the lockdown exercised by the Indian government since 24th March 2020 as a measure to reduce the infection, people were isolated themselves in their homes and depended more on online platforms for getting information regarding the pandemic to cope up with the uncertainties. Social media engagement during this period recorded a huge hike and also became a major carrier of misinformation (Srivastava, Shrivastava, Chhabra, Naqvi, & Sahu, 2020). Shockingly, a recent report exhibited that methanol killed more than 300 people in Iran after the fake news spread on social media that the stuff is good against the virus (Manu, 2020). In India, misinformation wave was colossal, consuming cow urine and Gangaajal (water of Ganga river), clapping and beating utensils and performing religious rituals were some of them (Dutta, 2020). Misinformation reconfigures with existing or true content rather than diffusing itself as wholesale and there are online monikers who are always trying to repudiate the information (Brennen, Simon, Howard, & Nielsen, 2020). Seventy-two people in India ended their life due to the fear of infection of the virus which they tested negative posthumously might have a connection with the misinformation that they consumed from various sources particularly online (Dsouza, Quadros, Hyderabadwala, & Mamun, 2020). Since no studies were conducted Academia Letters, March 2021 ©2021 by the authors — Open Access — Distributed under CC BY 4.0 Corresponding Author: Vysakh C, chingathvysakh@gmail.com Citation: C, V., H, D. (2021). COVID-19 infodemic and misinfodemic: A tale of India. Academia Letters, Article 799. https://doi.org/10.20935/AL799. 1 to explore how Indians encountered the misinfodemic by surveying the affected, we thought of undertaking a study. We surveyed 213 participants across the country by using a web questionnaire administered between 1st December 2020 and 15th January 2021 and the results are discussed here. Of the total participants surveyed, 71.36% of participants reported that they had come across various misinformation regarding the pandemic on the web. Fake information regarding cure & therapy, local vaccines, prayers, god blesses and forwarding requests were the most cited. Social media was the top mentioned source of misinformation followed by search engines and individual fact-checkers. The mushrooming of individual fact-checkers and their higher use in India was alarmed in a study by Luengo & Garcia-Marin (2020). If we split social media further, Snapchat, Pinterest and Quora were the most cited fertile platforms for discussing, sharing and spreading misinformation. To get rid of the misinfodemic, participants blocked accounts that sent fake news and relied on TV news channels, newspapers and other credible sources. Apart from noticing the misinformation, 12.21% of participants admitted themselves sharing unreal information on pandemic due to reasons like unawareness and unavailability of time for checking the authenticity of the information. Staggeringly, 5.16% of participants confessed that they spread fake information intentionally and men outperformed women in this activity. We also sought how this misinformation affected the participants, worryingly we found that participants were exposed to a range of mental and psychological issues like increased stress, depression, anxiety, insomnia, denial and anger. The searching for the medical information on the web continuously led the participants more anxious about their health what we say hypochondria and more precisely cyberchondria. It is worth noting that mis and disinformation must have fuelled the health anxiety among the participants especially those residing in the worse affected areas (Tagliabue, Galassi, & Mariani, 2020). The people are more tends to believe the conspiracy theories and rumours of COVID19 cause of psychological predispositions as justified by Van Prooijen (2018) and in India where population and internet users are very high, fighting against the misinfodemic amid pandemic outbreaks is quite challenging. The management of social media usage amid pandemic need further examination even though many tactics like Facebook’s ‘Get the facts’ and Twitter’s ‘Birdwatch’ were not up to the expectation to fully debunk the misinformation. The misinformation not only limited during the phase of the pandemic but also affect the future infodemiology which needs proper analysis of the experience of the symptomatic/affected/ patients that they share on the web to take further actions or decisions (Eysenbach, 1996). The proper intervention by the government is essential to reduce the spreading of misinformation and especially in developing countries, officials don’t consistently provide accurate information that’s required very quickly (Wajahat, 2020). Rather than creating a headline Academia Letters, March 2021 ©2021 by the authors — Open Access — Distributed under CC BY 4.0 Corresponding Author: Vysakh C, chingathvysakh@gmail.com Citation: C, V., H, D. (2021). COVID-19 infodemic and misinfodemic: A tale of India. Academia Letters, Article 799. https://doi.org/10.20935/AL799. 2 stress disorder, the mainstream media should act manoeuvre to stable the emotions of the people (Anwar, Malik, Raees, & Anwar, 2020). In conclusion, there is a need for stronger action to manage the misinfodemic and a coordinated approach among the states, countries, multi-national organizations, civil society and all others who have a role in combating the mis and disinformation pandemic. Academia Letters, March 2021 ©2021 by the authors — Open Access — Distributed under CC BY 4.0 Corresponding Author: Vysakh C, chingathvysakh@gmail.com Citation: C, V., H, D. (2021). COVID-19 infodemic and misinfodemic: A tale of India. Academia Letters, Article 799. https://doi.org/10.20935/AL799. 3 References Alimardani, M., & Elswah, M. (2020). Online Temptations: COVID-19 and Religious Misinformation in the MENA Region. Social Media and Society, 6(3), 4–7. https://doi.org/ 10.1177/2056305120948251 Andrews, M. A., Areekal, B., Rajesh, K. R., Krishnan, J., Suryakala, R., Krishnan, B., … Santhosh, P. V. (2020). First confirmed case of COVID-19 infection in India: A case report. Indian Journal of Medical Research, 151(5), 490–492. Anwar, A., Malik, M., Raees, V., & Anwar, A. (2020). Role of Mass Media and Public Health Communications in the COVID-19 Pandemic. Cureus, 12(9). https://doi.org/10.7759/ cureus.10453 Brennen, J. S., Simon, F. M., Howard, P. N., & Nielsen, R. K. (2020). 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