AsianScientist (May 28, 2020) – Besides the coronavirus, we are concurrently fighting another viral threat—fake news and misinformation. This ‘infodemic’ of misinformation ranges from conspiracy theories about the origins of the virus to unproven treatments that have caused fatalities.
Since the start of the year, Wikipedia has become the go-to source for COVID-19 medical and health information—it has had more than 100 million views on COVID-19 articles, safeguarded by a group of editors called Wikimedia Medicine, which has experience from past public-health scares such as the 2003 SARS outbreak.
Join Wildtype Media Group CEO Juliana Chan as she chats with Jimmy Wales, co-founder of Wikipedia and one of TIME Magazine’s “The 100 Most Influential People in the World.”
Along with Larry Sanger, Wales launched Wikipedia nearly two decades ago in January 2001. With its revolutionary model as a free, open-source and collaborative online encyclopedia, Wikipedia quickly became one of the Internet’s most recognizable sites. It is now the largest and most popular online reference, with over 53 million articles in various languages and 1.5 billion unique visitors each month. In 2003, Wales also founded the Wikimedia Foundation, Inc. to enable Wikipedia and its sibling projects to continue providing free content. Today, he remains on the Board of Trustees of the Wikimedia Foundation.
In this session, Jimmy will discuss the spread of fake news and misinformation during the pandemic, and the importance of digital literacy when consuming COVID-19 information.
Date:
Wednesday, June 3, 2020
Time:
9:00 am US Eastern Time
2:00 pm UK time
9:00 pm Singapore/Hong Kong Time
Please register here.
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Copyright: Asian Scientist Magazine.
Disclaimer: This article does not necessarily reflect the views of AsianScientist or its staff.
