关于冠状病毒的假事实满天飞

关于冠状病毒的假事实满天飞

is calling an "infodemic" — an overwhelming amount of information on social media and websites. Some of it's accurate. And some is downright untrue.

冠状病毒的爆发引发了世界卫生组织所谓的“信息危机”——社交媒体和网站上铺天盖地的信息。有些是准确的。有些是完全不真实的。

The false statements range from a conspiracy theory that the virus is a man-made bioweapon to the claim that more than 100.000 have died from the disease (as of this week, the number of reported fatalities is reported at 2.200-plus).

这些错误的说法包括阴谋论，认为这种病毒是一种人造生物武器，以及有超过10万人死于这种疾病(截至本周，据报道死亡人数超过2200人)。

WHO is fighting back. In early January, a few weeks after China reported the first cases, the U.N. agency launched a pilot program to make sure the facts about the newly identified virus are communicated to the public. The project is called EPI-WIN— short for WHO Information Network for Epidemics.

世界卫生组织正在辟谣。1月初，在中国报告首批病例几周后，该联合国机构启动了一个试点项目，以确保向公众传达关于新发现的病毒的事实。该项目被称为EPI-WIN-世卫组织流行病信息网络的简称。

"We need a vaccine against misinformation," said Dr. Mike Ryan, head of WHO's health emergencies program, at a WHO briefing on the virus earlier this month.

“我们需要一种针对错误信息的方法，”世卫组织卫生紧急项目负责人迈克·瑞安博士在本月早些时候世卫组织关于该病毒的简报会上说。

While this is not the first health crisis that has been characterized by online misinformation — it happened with Ebola, for example — researchers are especially concerned because this outbreak is centered in China. The world's most populous country has the largest market of Internet users globally: 21% of the world's 3.8 billion Internet users are in China.

虽然这不是第一次以网络错误信息为特征的健康危机，例如，埃博拉病毒就发生过，但研究人员特别担心，因为这次疫情集中在中国。世界上人口最多的国家拥有全球最大的互联网用户市场：全球38亿互联网用户中有21%在中国。

And fake news can spread quickly online. A 2018 study from Massachusetts Institute of Technology found that "false news spreads more rapidly on the social network Twitter than real news does." The reason, say the researchers, may be that the untrue statements inspire strong feelings such as fear, disgust and surprise.

而且假新闻可以在网上迅速传播。麻省理工学院2018年的一项研究发现，“虚假新闻在社交网络Twitter上的传播速度比真实新闻更快。”研究人员说，原因可能是不真实的陈述激起了强烈的情绪，如恐惧、厌恶和惊讶。

This dynamic could cause fake coronavirus cures and treatments to fan out widely on social media — and as a result, worsen the impact of the outbreak, says Bhaskar Chakravorti, dean of global business at the Fletcher School at Tufts University.

塔夫茨大学弗莱彻学院全球商学院院长巴斯卡尔·查克拉沃蒂表示，这种动态可能导致假冠状病毒治疗手段在社交媒体上广泛传播，因此，加剧了疫情的影响。

Over the past decade, he has been tracking the effect of digital technology on issues such as global health and economic development.

在过去的十年里，他一直在追踪数字技术对全球健康和经济发展等问题的影响。

The rumors offer remedies that have no basis in science. One untrue statement suggests that rubbing sesame oil on the skin will block the coronavirus.

这些谣言提供的治疗方法没有科学依据。一个不真实的说法是，在皮肤上擦芝麻油可以阻止冠状病毒。

If segments of the public turn to false treatments rather than follow the advice of trusted sources for avoiding illness (like frequent hand-washing with soap and water), it could cause "the disease to travel further and faster than it ordinarily would have," says Chakravorti.

查克拉沃蒂说，如果部分公众求助于虚假治疗，而不是听从可靠来源的建议来避免疾病(比如经常用肥皂和水洗手)，这可能会导致“疾病传播得比正常情况下更远、更快。”

There could be a political agenda behind the fake coronavirus news as well. Countries that are antagonistic toward China could try to hijack the conversation in hopes of creating chaos and eroding trust in the authorities, says Dr. Margaret Bourdeaux,research director for Harvard Belfer Center's Security and Global Health Project.

假冠状病毒的新闻背后也可能有政治动机。哈佛大学贝尔弗中心安全与全球卫生项目的研究主任玛格丽特·布尔多博士说，对中国持敌对态度的国家可能会试图劫持对话，以期制造混乱，削弱人们对中国当局的信任。