Avoid COVID-19 Scams Archives

By Tracey Dowdy

It’s nothing new for Facebook to be under scrutiny for fake news and hate speech. It’s been an issue for years and was never more evident than in the wake of the 2016 presidential election. They’ve made concerted efforts to rein in misinformation, but it’s an ongoing battle.

Facebook has been open about the challenges both human reviewers and AI have in identifying and removing offensive content. While things have improved, the number of users posting makes it challenging to curate information accurately.

One area where their efforts are glaringly deficient is the amount of COVID-19 related misinformation in languages other than English. Avaaz, a crowd-funded research group, analyzed more than 100 pieces of Facebook coronavirus misinformation on the website’s English, Spanish, Portuguese, Arabic, Italian and French versions.

They found that:

It can take Facebook up to 22 days to issue warning labels for coronavirus misinformation, with delays even when Facebook partners have flagged the harmful content for the platform.
29% of malicious content in the sample was not labeled at all on the English language version of the website.
It is worse in some other languages, with 68% of Italian-language content, 70% of Spanish-language content, and 50% of Portuguese-language content not labeled as false.
Facebook’s Arabic language efforts are more successful, with only 22% of the sample of misleading posts remaining unlabelled.
Over 40 percent of the coronavirus-related misinformation on the platform — which had already been debunked by fact-checking organizations working alongside Facebook — was not removed despite being told by these organizations that the content was based on misinformation.

Avaaz’s research led Facebook to begin alerting users if they’d been exposed to false information. So, according to a Facebook blog post and a report from BuzzFeed News, both Facebook and YouTube are cracking down yet again and using AI to weed out the volumes of misleading content.

Facebook has been forced to rely more heavily on AI as the COVID-19 pandemic has reduced its number of full-time employees. They still rely on contractors, many of whom, like the rest of us, are working from home. The content review team prioritizes posts that have the greatest potential for harm, including coronavirus misinformation, child safety, suicide, and anything related to self-harm.

CEO Mark Zuckerberg said, “Our effectiveness has certainly been impacted by having less human review during COVID-19. We do unfortunately expect to make more mistakes until we’re able to ramp everything back up.”

Currently, if a fact-checker flags a post as false, Facebook will drop it lower on a user’s News Feed and include a warning notice about the veracity of the content. The challenge in removing misinformation is that it’s much like dandelions on your lawn – you can remove them from one spot, but there’s already countless more popping up somewhere else.

Facebook uses a tool called SimSearchNet to identify the reposts and copies by matching them against its database of images that contain misinformation. The problems stem from users being quick to hit the “Share” button before checking to see if the source is a reputable organization.

Facebook Chief Technology Officer Mike Schroepfer admits AI will never be able to replace human curators. “These problems are fundamentally human problems about life and communication. So we want humans in control and making the final decisions, especially when the problems are nuanced.”

So before you hit “Share” or are tempted to gargle with vinegar or Lysol, head to UCF Libraries Fake News and Fact Checking page, Snopes, the CDC website, and do a little homework.

As Abraham Lincoln warned Americans during the Civil War, “You can’t believe everything you read on the internet.”

Tracey Dowdy is a freelance writer based just outside Washington DC. After years working for non-profits and charities, she now freelances, edits, and researches on subjects ranging from family and education to history and trends in technology. Follow Tracey on Twitter.

By Tracey Dowdy

Seasons like the one we’re currently living in bring out the best in some and the worst in others.

It’s nothing new for scammers to get creative during a national emergency – we’ve seen it happen time and again – and a global pandemic like COVID-19 is no exception.

A recent release from the US Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency offers great advice on how to avoid being scammed.

Phishing.

Any time an unsolicited email prompting you to click on an attachment hits your inbox it should raise a red flag. CISA recommends disabling automatic downloads for attachments. The problem is that not all email clients offer this, and each is different from another. Scammers know that in times like these, by pulling on your heartstrings or using language that increases your anxiety, you’re more likely to share sensitive or personal information, so they recommended taking the time to read Avoiding Social Engineering and Phishing Attacks. Most importantly, never ever reveal personal or financial information in an email or respond to requests for it via email or text. It’s also smart to ensure any charity or cause you choose to donate to is legitimate. Sites like Charity Navigator, guidestar.org, and give.org can help you vet the charity before handing over and money

Mobile Malware.

If you’re tracking COVID-19 news and information through an app, be aware that there are malware traps out there. Recently, a malicious Android app called CovidLock that purported to help users chart the spread of the virus instead locked and held many Android phones for ransom by hackers. DomainTools researcher Tarik Saleh states, “This Android ransomware application, previously unseen in the wild, has been titled ‘CovidLock’ because of the malware’s capabilities and its background story. CovidLock uses techniques to deny the victim access to their phone by forcing a change in the password used to unlock the phone. This is also known as a screen-lock attack and has been seen before on Android ransomware.”

Hackers have been using coronavirus-tracking map sites to inject malware into browsers and Market Watch reported that coronavirus-related website name registrations are 50% more likely to be from malicious actors. The best way to avoid this is by setting a password that can help protect you from a lock-out attack. And when it comes to choosing an app, shop the Google Play store so you’re less likely to download a malware-laced app.

Beware Facebook Charity Groups

It goes without saying, but there’s volumes of misinformation, fake cures, pseudo-science, and conspiracy theories being shared on social media, doing far more harm than good. Trust what the CDC says, not a theory posted by a guy you knew in high school who heard it from a friend of a friend who knows someone that talked to a guy working behind the scenes who can’t reveal his source. By clicking the “about” section of a Facebook group, you can see whether that group has changed its name multiple times to reflect new national crises — a sure sign that the group is trawling for an audience rather than promoting reliable news.

Here’s how to sift through the trash to find the treasure:

Trust only official sources on Twitter and Facebook including the accounts of trusted news sites and their reporters. Avoid talking heads or people presenting opinion and theory as opposed to facts.
Before you click on a website that purports to be an official government site, check the URL to see if it ends in .gov.

CISA’s has an official tip sheet to help you avoid being scammed during this challenging season.

Tracey Dowdy is a freelance writer based just outside Washington DC. After years working for non-profits and charities, she now freelances, edits and researches on subjects ranging from family and education to history and trends in technology. Follow Tracey on Twitter.