PHI 314 Week 2 Case Study

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Philosophy

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Dec 6, 2023

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Facebook's Most Viewed Article In Early 2021 Raised Doubt About COVID Vaccine Wilmington University PHI 314 Ethics for Computer Professionals

Facebook's Most Viewed Article In Early 2021 Raised Doubt About COVID Vaccine In the first three months of 2021, a news story about a doctor’s death due to the Covid- 19 vaccine became the most shared news link on Facebook. The article published by the Chicago Tribune was viewed by nearly 54 million U.S. users between January and March, according to a previously unpublished first-quarter Facebook report (Bond, S. 2021). The article written by South Florida Sun Sentinel reporter, Andrew Boryga, states that a Miami-Beach obstetrician, Dr. Gregory Michael, received the first dose of the Pfizer Covid-19 vaccine on December 18th, 2020. A few days later, spots began to appear on his hands and feet and sought treatment at the Mount Sinai Medical Center, where he worked. Dr. Michael had low platelet counts in his blood and after two weeks of care from experts across the country, Dr. Michael suffered a stroke and died on January 3rd, 2021 (Boryga, A. 2021). The tragic story of a medical provider succumbing to immune thrombocytopenia (ITP), a disorder that can prevent blood from clotting and cause internal bleeding (Boryga, A.2021), became the centerpiece of evidence for conspiracy theorists and vaccine deniers. This cause was not known at the time that the story was posted. This story was posted and shared 70,000 times on Facebook, viewed over 54,000,000 times and with over 5,000,000 reactions on Facebook and Twitter. The original headline of this article read as "A 'healthy' doctor died two weeks after getting a COVID-19 vaccine; CDC is investigating why." when it was posted in January of 2021. At that time, the article had no link between the Covid-19 vaccine shot and Dr. Michael’s death. On April 8th, 2021, the article was updated with the medical examiner’s conclusion of the ITP disorder, which also stated there is not enough evidence to support social media’s conjecture that the vaccine caused Dr. Michael’s death. This news article is an example of propagating a false narrative by anti-vaccine advocates. While this article did not break Facebook’s own rules on posting false information on the Covid-19 vaccine, the article was used in a misleading narrative about the effectiveness of the vaccine. The misinformation of the original article is in the headline. The headline is

meant to grab and entice the audience. The quotations of a ‘healthy’ doctor most likely spurred thoughts among anti-vaccine advocates. The same writer (Boryga) published the follow up article months later with the headline of “A doctor died weeks after getting a vaccine. Medical examiner can’t determine if vaccine played a role.” and goes more in depth of the cause. In this case, perhaps delaying this article would have been a wiser choice when he had all of the facts after the cause. However, is the decision to delay the article misinformation? I do not believe so, not in this particular case. The writer may not have known at the time that it would become the most viral story in the beginning of 2021, but he must have known that people will only read the headline. Misinformation like this and fake news is very concerning. Many times I will see an article headline or be shared an article from a friend or colleague with an adjoining text saying something like ‘do you believe x would do something like y’ or ‘can you believe x about y’. Before jumping to a response, I like to read what is in the context of what it is and form my own opinion on the matter. Many of these times, I’ll have to respond back, did you read this part of the article? Do all consumers read the articles past the headlines? I would say no. It is easier to get a knee jerk reaction from people from a sentence or two, rather than a whole page on the matter. Lots of times, these articles will be left open ended for people to form their own opinions, but the sensationalized headline is just clickbait which I believe is used to gather more clicks for ad revenue. How do we stop the spread of fake news and misinformation on social media? Facebook began to combat misinformation by updating their policies. Among these policies are identifying and removing clearly false information. They’ve implemented a third-party fact checking system to identify and remove any false information. Facebook has been informing their consumers by adding fact checking labels over content that is false, notifying users on the

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context of what they are sharing (adding a notification that this article is ex. 1 year old) and connecting people to reliable sources of information, like the CDC. Some of the challenges that Facebook faces, consumers and in this particular subject, our government and its citizens have to deal with is ethical journalism which influences potentially life-changing decisions for people. The misinformation in this article showed to influence people to turn away from a lifesaving vaccine. Fake news and misinformation, if not corrected quickly and concisely, can permeate allowing people to believe the false narratives they create. Cybersecurity professionals certainly have an ethical obligation to the public, which includes themselves, their employers, their friends and family and their fellow citizens. The cybersecurity professionals in this case would follow a set of virtue ethics. Honesty and a moral compass in doing what is right for society. They must have an obligation with fact checking what is the truth and will it benefit the public even if it were to go against any of their own personal beliefs. Misinformation is dangerous. I believe we need to promote scientific evidence and ethical principles in order to combat misinformation on social media. We need to communicate this from a grounded standpoint. Social media has its issues and fighting misinformation will be difficult, but civil debating, mitigation techniques such as what Facebook is doing and collaboration are ways we can start to develop effective and responsible approaches to correcting misinformation.

References: Boryga, A. (2021, April 14). A “healthy” doctor died two weeks after getting a COVID-19 vaccine; CDC is investigating why. Chicago Tribune. https://www.chicagotribune.com/coronavirus/fl-ne-miami-doctor-vaccine-death-20210107- afzysvqqjbgwnetcy5v6ec62py-story.html Bond, S. (2021, August 22). Facebook’s most viewed article in early 2021 raised doubt about COVID vaccine. NPR. https://www.npr.org/2021/08/21/1030038616/facebooks-most-viewed-article-in-early-2021-raised-doubt-about-covid- vaccine Q1 Content Transparency Report V0 (US) - internal copy. (n.d.). https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/21047875-facebook-q1-most-viewed-content-report Boryga, A. (2021a, April 8). A doctor died weeks after getting a vaccine. Medical Examiner can’t determine if vaccine played a role. Sun Sentinel. https://www.sun-sentinel.com/2021/04/08/a-doctor-died-weeks-after-getting-a-vaccine- medical-examiner-cant-determine-if-vaccine-played-a-role/ Facebook combating misinformation. Facebook. (n.d.). https://www.facebook.com/combating-misinfo Working to stop misinformation and false news. Working to Stop Misinformation and False News | Meta for Media. (n.d.). https://www.facebook.com/formedia/blog/working-to-stop-misinformation-and-false-news Vallor, S. (n.d.). An introduction to cybersecurity ethics . Santa Clara University. https://www.scu.edu/media/ethics- center/technology-ethics/IntroToCybersecurityEthics.pdf Freiling, I., Krause, N. M., & Scheufele, D. A. (2023, March 1). Science and ethics of “curing” misinformation. Journal of Ethics | American Medical Association. https://journalofethics.ama-assn.org/article/science-and-ethics- curing-misinformation/2023-03

PHI 314 Week 2 Case Study

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