Fake News and Vaccination: How the Science Anti Fake News Team in Argentina is fighting the infodemic

Abstract

At the outset of the pandemic, it became clear that misinformation (“fake news”) on COVID-19 was spreading rapidly. In this article, we discuss our efforts to combat misinformation by joining with researchers from various disciplines in Argentina to form the Science Anti-Fake News team. We highlight three examples of fact checks on vaccine misinformation that we conducted from October 2020 to July 2021 and provide evidence of their reach in our social media audiences. The article further discusses the manner in which misinformation spreads and the importance of “democratising” the availability of scientific knowledge in the context of the uncertainty provoked by the COVID-19 pandemic.