Separating Fact from Fiction

People often ask me, “They still have librarians? Isn’t it all on the internet?”

I respond to these questions that, as a librarian, part of my job is simply getting people to believe that they can’t necessarily trust what they read on the internet.

The coronavirus crisis reminds me continually of the importance of librarians and how much work we still need to do to help others see that, too.

An Infodemic

The World Health Organization has used the term “infodemic” to describe the flood of inaccurate information about the novel coronavirus/COVID-19 that can make it difficult for people to find the information they need. Social networking is playing a major role in spreading this misinformation: according to CNN, this problem has gotten so bad that WhatsApp Messenger (a text and voice app) have had to limit the amount of times a message can be forwarded to one in order to slow the spread of false information.

Image by Engin Akyurt from Pixabay

Combating the Infodemic

Librarians have been sharing tools to combating misinformation for years, and these tools are as key to combating the coronavirus infodemic — after all, the information literacy skills taught by librarians are meant to go beyond the classroom. They are life skills, and if there was ever a time to apply those skills, this is it.

A key information literacy concept is seeking authoritative information. This means that the person or organization providing information is an expert in the topic he or she is commenting on. In the case of the coronavirus, an appropriate person to provide medical information would be a doctor who is a specialist in infectious diseases and epidemiology, and an example of an authoritative organization is the World Health Organization (WHO) or The Center for Disease Control (CDC).

Mythbusting Websites

It can be hard to sort out incorrect information on your own. Below are some websites that can help you debunk coronavirus/COVID-19 myths and rumors:

• Federal Emergency Management Agency, Coronavirus Rumor Control
• United States Department of Defense, Coronavirus: Rumor Control

Snopes.com is a well-known website devoted to exposing disinformation. This includes discussing the validity of myths relating to COVID-19. It can be accessed at https://www.snopes.com/

Brandon Harrington, Library Assistant at Starrett City has created an excellent Fake News LibGuide. Addition fact checking websites listed there are:

• FactCheck.org, a project of the The Annenberg Public Policy Center
• The Washington Post Fact Checker
• PolitiFact, from The Poynter Institute

A Ray of Hope

Beyond these authoritative resources, we can look to well-qualified people to connect us with accurate information, too. Someone I have come to respect throughout the coronavirus crisis has been Dr. Anthony Fauci, the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases.

As a librarian, I appreciate that he answers questions by stressing the importance of making decisions based on quality data, rather than on personal beliefs, assumptions, or anecdotal information. The peer-reviewed studies he praises are the same type of studies we help our students and faculty find every day.

Anthony S. Fauci, M.D., Director, National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), National Institutes of Health (NIH). Credit: NIH

Conclusion

While the coronavirus crisis has led to a flood of misinformation, we hope you find this post helps you find ways to separate the fact from fiction and to find accurate voices to listen to — and know that you can always call on a librarian for help.

This post was contributed by Michael Kahn, Librarian, Touro College School for Lifelong Education

References

ACRL. (n.d.). Framework for Information Literacy for Higher Education. http://www.ala.org/acrl/standards/ilframework

FactCheck. (2020). https://www.factcheck.org/

Gold, H. (2020, April 7). WhatsApp tightens limits on message forwarding to counter coronavirus misinformation. CNN. https://www.cnn.com/2020/04/07/tech/whatsapp-misinformation-forward-limit/index.html

Harrington, B. (2020, February 13). Fake News: How to spot Fake News. [LibGuide]. http://libguides.tourolib.org/fakenews

PolitiFact. (n.d.). https://www.politifact.com/

Quinnipiac University. (n.d.). April 8, 2020 – Fauci, governors get highest marks for response to coronavirus, Quinnipiac University National Poll finds; Majority say Trump’s response not aggressive enough. https://poll.qu.edu/national/release-detail?ReleaseID=3658

The Washington Post Fact Checker. (n.d.). https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/fact-checker/?utm_term=.24060580321d

United Nations. (n.d.). UN tackles ‘infodemic’ of misinformation and cybercrime in COVID-19 crisis. https://www.un.org/en/un-coronavirus-communications-team/un-tackling-%E2%80%98infodemic%E2%80%99-misinformation-and-cybercrime-covid-19

Staying Balanced on the Hyphen

This blog post contains discussions of bipolar disorder. If you are in crisis or you think you may have an emergency, call your doctor or 911 immediately. If you’re having suicidal thoughts, call 1-800-273-TALK (8255) to talk to a skilled, trained counselor at a crisis center in your area at any time (National Suicide Prevention Lifeline). If you are located outside the United States, call your local emergency line immediately.

Do you know someone with a mental illness? Someone who is considered neuroatypical, whose brain works differently than most people?

Perhaps you know someone with bipolar disorder, as “an estimated 2.8% of U.S. adults had bipolar disorder in the past year.” (The National Institute of Mental Health Information Resource Center, 2017) Or you know someone who has this disease and you don’t know it — someone who, as I put it, is “staying balanced on the hyphen”. This might be someone who works very hard on a daily basis to stay within a “normal” range of emotions and not give into the manic highs and deep lows of the illness.

Image by Serena Wong from Pixabay

Bipolar disorder is defined by the National Institute of Mental Health as “a mental disorder that causes unusual shifts in mood, energy, activity levels, concentration, and the ability to carry out day-to-day tasks” (The National Institute of Mental Health Information Resource Center, 2020). It is characterized by extreme see-sawing moods, from “extremely ‘up,’ elated, irritable, or energized behavior (known as manic episodes) to very ‘down,’ sad, indifferent, or hopeless periods (known as depressive episodes)” (The National Institute of Mental Health Information Resource Center, 2020).

You can take the librarian out of the library…

How can I be a librarian from home?

I started thinking about this as I sat alone by my computer: can I be a librarian outside of the library? The more I thought about it, the more I realized that one could do a great deal from home as a librarian. As some might say, you can take the librarian out of the library, but you can’t take the library out of the librarian.

Image by Anrita1705 from Pixabay

After being told we would begin working from home, we were given one day to go back to our offices to set up or pack up what we needed to work remotely. This began a whirlwind of changes to the way I work, from new, purring officemates to turning my home into a modern industrial park. 

The New Meaning of “Shelter in Place”

For the first time in the history of Chicago Animal Care and Control, the shelter has run out of dogs to adopt — and Chicago is not the only place in the United States seeing an uptick in animal adoptions and fostering since the coronavirus outbreak began.

In New York City and Los Angeles, the ASPCA says its applications for dogs and cats are up 200%. Nationwide, the statistics are even more promising. Petpoint, a software program that monitors 1,200 animal shelters across the country, found that adoptions are up 700% this year compared to 2019. Why the increase in pet adoptions and fostering since the coronavirus outbreak? It seems that sheltering in place, social media appeals, and the need for companionship are all driving this trend.

Image by Free-Photos from Pixabay

With stay-at-home orders in place across the country, many animal shelters are suspending operations. The temporary closure of shelters is leaving many animals vulnerable to not receiving adequate care. Furthermore, adoption events that usually bring in potential pet parents are being cancelled or postponed due to social distancing guidelines. The situation has caused shelter workers and volunteers to reach out on social media over the past month to ask the public for help by adopting shelter animals. If people are unable to adopt, shelters are asking them to foster animals temporarily until the shelters can reopen in the future.

In addition to being a platform for shelters to appeal directly to the public for help, social media has also been used to form virtual adoption communities and host online events. Since many live adoption events have been cancelled, some shelters are using Facebook Live to showcase adoptable pets online to people across the country. This method has given animals more exposure to a larger audience than traditional live events, which, in turn, is bringing in more potential adopters. Social media has also allowed rescue organizations across the country to work together in order to bring animals from one region to another. This has been very helpful since some areas of the country have a surplus of animals and others have a surplus of interested adopters and foster applicants. 

Image by Helga Kattinger from Pixabay

Americans are responding to these social media activities in droves. The response seems to have grown out of both a sense of compassion toward the animals in need and a desire that many Americans have to help out others in a time of crisis to “try and do their part.” This response is also likely the result of the companionship that pets can provide in this anxious time. Taking care of pets provides consistency and routine for people who are not used to living under these new restrictions. In a time of social distancing, pets give people a sense of comfort and connection. They are giving people activities to engage in, too, whether that is going outside to walk the dog — while practicing social distancing — or having online meetings with other pet owners. The benefits to both humans and animals has been great and is something to cherish during this stressful time.

This post was contributed by Annette Carr, Librarian at the School of Health Sciences at Bay Shore

References

Beck, M., & McFetridge, S. (2020). Coronavirus in US: Pet fostering takes off as COVID-19 keeps Americans home. Retrieved from https://abc7ny.com/6077028/

Chicago animal care and control runs out of adoptable dogs for 1st time ever. (2020). Retrieved from https://abc7chicago.com/6082614/

Fies, A. (2020). People and pets help each other through coronavirus pandemic. Retrieved from https://abcnews.go.com/Health/people-pets-coronavirus-pandemic/story?id=69949246

Jeunesse, W. L. (2020). Pet adoptions, fostering spike amid coronavirus restrictions. Retrieved from https://www.foxnews.com/us/pet-adoptions-and-fostering-spike-during-coronavirus

How to Diffuse a ‘Zoombomb’

The new reality of working from home and social distancing relies on the use of video conference platforms to connect with co-workers and customers. Zoom has recently emerged as one of the leading remote meeting platforms where users can engage in online video conferences, chat, and mobile collaboration. Zoom was founded in 2011 by software engineer Eric Yuan. The company went public on the NASDAQ in April 2019.

There is no doubt that the COVID-19 pandemic has been a boon for Zoom. Many schools, colleges, and companies across the country began downloading and using the platform just as the virus began to force people to work from home. Since March, the software has been downloaded 40 million times worldwide, and since February, the stock price for Zoom has nearly doubled from approximately $76 per share to $159 per share. But, as with many companies that find sudden success, Zoom’s flaws have been becoming more apparent to consumers.

Image by mohamed Hassan from Pixabay

Criticism of Zoom has revolved around its security flaws and a new phenomenon called “Zoombombing.” Zoombombing occurs when a hacker, prankster, or wrongdoer enters a Zoom meeting uninvited (aka “crashing a meeting”) and begins interrupting the meeting by posting inappropriate content or hijacking the meeting from the host. Zoombombing has led to many customers having to terminate their videoconferences, cancel meetings, and worry if their cyber security systems have been breached. One of our librarians at Bay Shore was in a webinar this week that had to be terminated due to a Zoombomber posting illicit content and disrupting the meeting.

In addition to Zoombombing, the rapid increase in Zoom usage has led to scrutiny of the company’s privacy policies and potential security flaws. In particular, Mac iOS users are vulnerable to security problems as hackers have been able to access Zoom on their computer to turn on cameras and microphones as well as install malware on their computer systems. Zoom has also come under criticism for giving user data to Facebook without users’ knowledge or permission. Zoom has since stopped giving user data to Facebook, but these problems have already led to class action lawsuits against Zoom.

Image by mohamed Hassan from Pixabay

While the privacy challenges need to be addressed at the company-level, Zoombombing is a threat we, as users, can take steps to combat as we continue to use Zoom throughout the COVID-19 pandemic and beyond:

• Use the latest software: Ensure your participants are using the latest version of Zoom. The latest version has upgraded security features to block users from randomly scanning and joining meetings.

• Password protect: When creating a meeting, make sure your meetings require a password for participants to enter. Zoom has made password protection a default setting on the latest version of the platform.

• Direct invitation: Invite participants directly via email with an invitation and meeting password. Do not publicly post Zoom meeting information via social media or other public channels.

• Close your meeting: Once all participants have arrived at the meeting, close the meeting to any newcomers to avoid crashers. Hosts can close the meeting by clicking on the “Participants” tab at the bottom of the screen and choosing the “Lock Meeting” option.

• Remove/disable unwanted participants: The meeting host can remove and block crashers who are Zoombombing. The host can also disable the chat feature, mute all participants, disable participants from sharing videos, and limit screen sharing options to “Host only”.

If you experience a Zoombombing intrusion, be sure to report it to Zoom at the following link: https://support.zoom.us/hc/en-us/requests/new

This post was contributed by Annette Carr, Librarian at the School of Health Sciences at Bay Shore

References

Andone, D. (2020). FBI warns video calls are getting hijacked. it’s called ‘Zoombombing’. Retrieved from https://www.cnn.com/2020/04/02/us/fbi-warning-zoombombing-trnd/index.html

Hodge, R. (2020). Zoombombing: What it is and how to prevent it in Zoom video chat. Retrieved from https://www.cnet.com/how-to/zoombombing-what-it-is-and-how-to-prevent-it-in-zoom-video-chat/

Lehtonen, S. (2020). Dow Jones surges 500 points on soaring jobless claims, as coronavirus stock market correction worsens. Retrieved from https://www.investors.com/market-trend/stock-market-today/dow-jones-coronavirus-stock-market-jobless-claims-luckin-coffee/

Newman, L. H. (2020, Apr 01,). The Zoom privacy backlash is only getting started. Wired, Retrieved from https://www.wired.com/story/zoom-backlash-zero-days/

Peterson, M. (2020). Two more MacOS Zoom flaws surface, as lawsuit & government probe loom. Retrieved from https://appleinsider.com/articles/20/04/01/two-more-macos-zoom-flaws-surface-as-lawsuit-government-probe-loom

Wutoh, A. K. (2020). Steps for Zoom protection email. Retrieved from https://mailchi.mp/7b3f91503173/steps-for-zoom-protection-email?e=d1d4c0b48f