The synergy between two threats: Disinformation and COVID-19

Abstract

The breakdown of trusted sources of information is probably one of the most serious problems today, since in the absence of a common ground, it will be impossible to address the problems that trouble our contemporary world. The COVID-19 pandemic is just a recent situation where the lack of agreed stances has led to failure and hopelessness. In fact, disinformation surrounding the COVID-19 has been a distinctive feature of this pandemic since its very beginning and has hampered what is perhaps the most important initiative to prevent the spread of the coronavirus, viz., an effective communication between scientifically minded health authorities and the general public. To investigate how disinformation threatens epistemic security, here we propose and solve analytically an evolutionary game-theoretic model where the individuals must accurately estimate some property of their hazardous environment. They can either explore the environment or copy the estimate from another individual, who may display a distorted version of its estimate. We find that the exploration-only strategy is optimal when the environment is relatively safe and the individuals are not reliable. In this doomsday scenario, disinformation erodes trust and suppresses the ability of the individuals to share information with one another.