THE INFODEMIC

Two advocates for journalists’ rights reveal the severe blows to free expression and democracy inflicted by world leaders’ repressive actions during the pandemic.

Drawing on their work with the Committee to Protect Journalists, Simon and Mahoney map the alarming spread of what the World Health Organization calls “the infodemic”—“the flood of misinformation, lies, rumors, half-truths,” and other ills that authorities worldwide have deployed to weaponize Covid-19, risking lives and undermining freedom. “Censorship has been a defining feature of the…pandemic,” they write. Legal and journalistic purists may take issue with their expansion of the traditional definition of censorship to include not just the suppression of information, but its manipulation for harmful ends, as by promoting false narratives or spying on citizens electronically, purportedly to promote public safety. But it’s hard to argue with the wealth of facts, quotes, and stories the authors use to support their case. A startling number of countries have become “less free” during the pandemic: 91 have imposed new censorship measures, and in 80, democracy and human rights have deteriorated, according to a 2020 report by the democracy watchdog Freedom House. The infodemic may have begun when China lied about the origins of Covid-19 (at one point claiming that it originated in imported “frozen food”), but it spread quickly to democracies like Brazil, which pumped out misinformation; and Israel and Norway, which “coerced or cajoled” citizens into releasing personal data on dubious grounds. The “most disappointing result by far” has occurred in India, which Freedom House downgraded from a “free” to “partly free” country after Prime Minister Narendra Modi cracked down on the press, shut down the courts, and vilified Muslims by suggesting that they were spreading the virus. Few readers will disagree with the authors’ conclusion that, in response to such crises, people everywhere must “stand up for our right to speak freely.”

A sobering account of how governments have used Covid-19 as a pretext for limiting freedom.