Desinformação na Pandemia da Covid-19: uma análise do canal de informações Saúde sem Fake News do Ministério da Saúde

Abstract

The Covid-19 pandemic has challenged humanity with alarming implications. For this reason, there is also a strong concern about the circulation of information that hinders the fight against the disease. The disinformation (WARDLE, 2017) affects everyday life and social imaginary, being reinforced by the performance of digital agents that facilitate its dissemination (PARISER, 2011; BRUNO, 2012; CANCLINI, 2019). The belief in this type of content, evidenced by the culture of the post-truth (SANTAELLA, 2018; ANCONA, 2018; BUCCI, 2019) occurs in a symbolic dimension that extends to actions, compromising fulfillment of safe guidelines for the prevention and treatment of infection (VAEZI; JAVANMARD, 2020; POSETTI; BONTCHEVA, 2020). Thus, our research aims to analyze the disinformation in the Covid-19 pandemic and the actions used to combat this type of content through the Saúde sem Fake News information channel of the Ministry of Health, while it was active, based on the concept and methodology of Information Disorder (WARDLE; DERAKSHAN, 2017). As a result, we identified that desinformation reaches different stages of the pandemic, from its origin to the treatment of the infection, and has the capacity to cause direct damage to people's health, interfering with the way they deal with the disease. The Saúde sem Fake News channel adopted a reactive stance that was limited to attesting to the veracity or falsity of the verifications, without questioning their specificities, ignoring essential aspects for the effective combat of this type of content.