Exploring COVID-19 Online Debates and Information Pollution in Latin America and the Caribbean

To better understand the scale and nature of the information pollution challenge related to COVID-19 and vaccines in LAC, and to help develop policy responses, UNDP commissioned Constella Intelligence to conduct a social and digital media research study, using a combination of artificial intelligence and human-assisted analysis methods. The research focused on the digital public sphere in Spanish and English from October 2020 to February 2021. The research found that a significant amount of information pollution is created by repackaging, reframing, and reproducing content produced by mainstream media and that approximately 1.4% of the reviewed content in the LAC region could be classified as information pollution - while the proportion may seem small, it corresponds to half a million items over four months, which has an outsized impact on vulnerable audiences. As part of the analysis, UNDP and Constella Intelligence took a deep dive into the significant volume of conversations related to COVID-19, revealing the true nature of online discussions during the pandemic to help identify vulnerabilities and inform strategies to counter the most harmful effects of information pollution.