False coronavirus rumors surge in ‘hidden viral’ text messages.
While the federal government does have the power to take some actions for public health reasons, such as testing people entering the country, decisions about enacting quarantines and other local restrictions fall to state governments.
The spread of the texts comes as health professionals have warned of an "infodemic" around the coronavirus, and a poll by the Knight Foundation, a nonprofit journalism organization, found 74 percent of Americans are worried about coronavirus misinformation. Pasquetto said the way rumors travel in the U.S. is different than other nations where the messaging app WhatsApp is more prevalent, in part because American text message groups tend to be smaller in size.
"It's all about emotion," Wardle said. "When it's 'my friend who works at the Department of Defense, who said there was a secret meeting,' it's the most powerful form of disinfo. Even journalists can't tell you if a secret meeting didn't happen."
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