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WHO Declares ‘Infodemic,’ Announces New ‘Misinformation’ Surveillance Program

Anastasia Boushee
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While working on their “pandemic treaties” to centralize the world’s public health response, the World Health Organization (WHO) has declared a so-called “infodemic” and claiming that a new “misinformation” surveillance program was necessary to fight against ideas that “undermine trust and social cohesiveness.”

In a document titled “Preparedness and Resilience for Emerging Threats (PRET),” the WHO spoke out against the abundance of information on the internet — which they deem an “infodemic” — that they believe makes it difficult for people to “adopt behaviours that will protect their health.”

“People have now access to an enormous amount of information (which increases during crisis) from many different sources, traditional or digital, including for instance online platform offering pre-print access to scientific articles,” the document states. “Health institutions are not anymore, the only provider of information. This new information ecosystem has generated a new “Health Threat” that accompanies epidemics and pandemics, called infodemic.”

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“Infodemic is the overabundance of information -accurate or not- which makes it difficult for individuals to adopt behaviours that will protect their health and the health of their families and communities,” the WHO claimed. “The infodemic can directly impact health, hamper the implementation of public health countermeasures and undermine trust and social cohesiveness. Infodemic cannot be eliminated it can only be managed. This is why WHO and partners have developed the approach of infodemic management which encompasses Risk Communication and Community Engagement adding additional tools and approaches to manage it more efficiently in the 21st century.”

According to reporting from Natalie Winters, part of the WHO’s plan involves implementing “social listening surveillance systems to ‘identify concerns as well as rumors and misinformation’ among people who dare to… defy mainstream narratives.”

As the United States is the only country in the world that protects the right to free speech, the WHO’s plan to fight the so-called “infodemic” will likely be easily implemented in many countries around the world, but may be more difficult to implement in the U.S.

President Joe Biden, however, has been supportive of the WHO pandemic treaties, which would involve “transferring much of the authority for pandemic control from member nations to the U.N. agency,” according to reporting from Breitbart News.

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Conservatives have condemned Biden’s willingness to agree to a surrender of power over the nation’s public health policy to an unaccountable, international agency — especially one that is largely controlled by China.