WHO kicks off deliberations on ethical framework and tools for social listening and infodemic management

The panel brings together experts from academia, health authorities, and civil society, with a wide range of expertise such as in biomedical ethics, data privacy, law, digital sociology, digital health, epidemiology, health communication, health promotion, and media studies.

An infodemic is an overabundance information, including misinformation, that surges during a health emergency. During a health emergency, people seek, receive, process and act on information differently than in other times, which makes it even more important to use evidence-based strategies in response. Infodemic management practice, underpinned by the science of infodemiology, has rapidly evolved in the recent years. Tools and experience that were developed during COVID-19 pandemic response have already been applied to other outbreaks, such as ebola, polio and cholera.

Social listening in public health is the process of gathering information about people’s questions, concerns, and circulating narratives and misinformation about health from online and offline data sources. Data gleaned from social media platforms are being used in a number ways to identify and understand outbreaks, geographic and demographic trends, networks, sentiment and behavioral responses to public health emergencies. Offline data collection may include rapid surveys, townhalls, or interviews with people in vulnerable groups, communities of focus and specific populations. These data are then integrated with other data sources from the health system (such as health information systems) and outside of it (mobility data) to generate infodemic insights and inform strategies to manage infodemics.

However, the collection and use of this data presents ethical challenges, such as privacy and consent, and there is currently no agreed-upon ethical framework for social listening and infodemic management.

The panel will focus on issues such as data control, commercialization, transparency, and accountability, and will consider ethical guidelines for both online and offline data collection, analysis and reporting. The goal is to develop an ethical framework for social listening and infodemic management to guide health authorities when planning and standing up infodemic insights teams and activities, as well as for practitioners when planning and implementing social listening and infodemic management.