Synthesis of medical misinformation on search engines and social media before and during COVID-19

Misinformation is false or inaccurate information, especially that which is "deliberately promoted" and, or, "accidentally shared." Misinformation was listed by the World Economic Forum (WEF) as one of the main threats to our society. While misinformation has been around forever, its velocity and volume have increased due to search engines and social media usage. Search engines and social media are the commonly used online services allowing them to impact the amount and quality of information individuals receive significantly. At the time of this research paper, an outbreak of novel coronavirus (COVID-19) originating from Wuhan, Hubei Province, China, in 2019, has spread worldwide. (Smith, 2019) This paper compares research studies, identifying motivation, methodologies, and results, before and during COVID-19 to reflect the current socio-technical problems and solutions identified to combat medical misinformation. This research paper found that there are similarities and differences between studies on vaccines and previous pandemics, and COVID-19.