Fake News Pandemic: Fake News And False Information About Covid-19 and An Analysis on FactChecking from Turkey in Sample Teyit.org

Abstract

As in all crisis periods, eyes have turned to both mass media and social media platforms in the period of COVID-19. Misinformation about the spread of the disease, preventive measures and treatment methods can leave much deeper effects than the false news seen in other periods and cause the pandemic to spread further and seriously affect public health. Therefore, the COVID-19 pandemic becomes even more dangerous with the fake and false news pandemic, which is effective on a global scale, and the need for news validation activities and the organizations that carry out this process increases. In this study, fact-checking activities carried out by Teyit which continued to work as a member of the International Fact-Checking Network (IFCN) in Turkey, during the pandemi period were discussed. In the study, when compared to the same time period in 2018 in Turkey, the number of suspects examined by Teyit in the first three months of the year 2020 has been shown to increase. In addition, it was determined that the policy category, which ranks first in the questionable content type that has been passed through the fact-checking process, has been replaced by the health category.