A study published in the American Journal of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene also estimates that about 5,800 other people were admitted to the hospital as a result of false social media data.
Many died after drinking methanol or alcohol-based cleaning products.
They’re wrong to say that products are a cure for the virus.
However, the actual figure would probably never have been known, as knowledge of Iran, where many of the alleged deaths from methanol poisoning occurred, is difficult to verify.
The World Health Organization (WHO) has stated in the past that the “infodemia” surrounding Covid-19 is spreading as rapidly as the virus itself, with conspiracy theories, rumors and cultural stigma contributing to deaths and injuries.
Many patients had followed recommendations similar to credible medical data, such as eating giant amounts of garlic or drinking gigantic amounts of nutrients, as a way to avoid infection, according to the test authors. Others drank ingredients like cow urine.
All of these movements had “potentially serious implications” for his health, the researchers said.
The document concludes that it is the duty of foreign agencies, governments and social media platforms to fight this “infodemia,” but generation corporations have been criticized for their slowness and uneven response. In the UK, online harm legislation can be in several years.
The BBC’s own investigations have been linked to assaults, arson and deaths from incorrect information about the virus, and have spoken to doctors, experts and the sick about their experiences.
Online rumors have led to mob attacks in India and mass poisonings in Iran. Telecommunications engineers have been threatened and attacked and antennas have caught fire in the UK and other countries due to conspiracy theories that have been incubated and amplified online.
Social media also takes advantage of the pandemic, promoting useless badges that seek to protect themselves from the virus and urging subscribers to buy cash in exchange for a “miracle mineral supplement,” which is indeed diluted bleach.
As vaccines arise, there is an additional risk that vaccine activists will use the social media platform to convince others not to do so to themselves.
Although social media corporations remove or label misleading vaccine data, a recent survey in the United States showed that 28% of Americans believe Bill Gates uses vaccines to implant microchips in humans.
Achieving an effective coronavirus vaccine can be absolutely undermined by misinformation, doctors told the BBC’s anti-disinformation team.