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COVID Crisis: Vaccine Conspiracy Theories, Hoaxes In Spanish Targeting Hispanic - Health - Nairaland

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COVID Crisis: Vaccine Conspiracy Theories, Hoaxes In Spanish Targeting Hispanic by Valentina1987: 2:32am On Mar 18, 2021
Ilan Shapiro, a physician working in COVID-ravaged areas of Los Angeles and Orange County, where Latinos face high rates of infection, hospitalization and death, says he waited 13 months for life-saving vaccines only to be thwarted by Spanish-language viral misinformation spreading on social media.
Knocking down false rumors, conspiracy theories and misleading news reports that play on vaccine fears has become a routine and necessary part of treating patients.
Shapiro is fighting back with a Spanish-speaking digital campaign, #VacunateYa, that taps health-care professionals and “promotoras” – community members trained to deliver health information – to dispel myths with medical facts.
But he says it's nearly impossible to keep up with all the falsehoods shared by friends, relatives, even celebrities, on social media platforms like Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and YouTube and in private messaging apps like WhatsApp.
Surging misinformation, he says, is contributing to low vaccination rates among a vulnerable population whose health and finances have already been hard hit by the coronavirus pandemic.  
“We can have all the vaccines in the world here in the U.S., but, if they don’t go in the shoulder, all of our efforts are meaningless,” Shapiro said.
Research shows that health and vaccine-related falsehoods and conspiracy theories are one of the most pervasive forms of misinformation targeting Hispanic communities.
Watchdog groups call it the Spanish-language misinformation gap. They say social media companies have been far less likely to flag misinformation in Spanish, including debunked claims of election fraud and vaccine falsehoods.
They blame lax enforcement, errors in translation such as misinterpreting slang, dialects and context and poor fact-checking of Spanish-language news sites.
An analysis last year by human rights nonprofit Avaaz found that Facebook did not put warning labels on 70% of Spanish-language misinformation versus 29% of misinformation in English.
“Facebook continues to ignore our concerns and is making one thing perfectly clear: the safety and dignity of the Latinx community is not their priority,” said Brenda Victoria Castillo, president and CEO of the National Hispanic Media Coalition. 
On Tuesday Hispanic advocacy organizations launched a “Ya Basta, Facebook” (“Stop it, Facebook”) campaign, calling on Facebook to devote more resources to Spanish-language moderation.
In a statement, Facebook said it shares the organizations' goal of stopping Spanish-language misinformation on its apps.

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