The Social listening in infodemic management for public health emergencies: guidance on ethical considerations being launched provides ethical guidance for governments, ministries, departments, agencies, organizations and individuals engaging in social listening for infodemic management practices in preparation for, during and after public health emergencies. As infodemic management involves addressing the spread of overwhelming health information during public health emergencies, it focuses on reducing misinformation and building trust in health authorities and ensuring consistent public health messaging to prevent confusion and harmful behaviours.
Social listening has a crucial role in identifying community questions and concerns, values and beliefs. Data gathered from social listening provides additional evidence to allow informed decisions and recommendations to be made to address health misinformation, disinformation, information voids and other critical issues that are related to recommended public health action. Although they are useful activities, social listening and infodemic management come with risks, including privacy breaches, misuse of data, human rights violations, potential harm to vulnerable populations, and erosion of trust in health institutions. To mitigate these risks, this document offers an ethical framework to govern and ensure responsible and ethical social listening in infodemic management practices. The document covers the technical definitions of terms, ethical challenges in infodemic management, alignment with human rights, substantive and procedural ethical principles. The document presents proposed actions for translating ethical principles for infodemic management into real-world practice.
Speakers
Moderator: Kai von Harbou, Unit Head, Community Protection and Resilience, WHO
Opening remarks: Chikwe Ihekweazu, Deputy Executive Director, Health Emergencies Programme and WHO Regional Director for Africa a.i.
Social listening and infodemic management in the context of community protection: Nedret Emiroglu, Director, Health Emergencies Core Capabilities, WHO
Motivation of the project and objectives: Andreas Reis, Senior Ethics Officer, WHO and Kai von Harbou, Unit Head, Community Protection and Resilience, WHO
Overall structure of the document, architecture, process, evidence: Nikola Biller Andorno, University of Zurich
Experience from representative of expert group: David Scales, Weill Cornell Medical College
Elodie Ho, Africa Infodemic Response Alliance (AIRA)
Q&A session: Sandra Machiri / Becky White, WHO
Closing remarks: John Reeder, Director, Research and Training in Tropical Diseases, WHO