Coronavirus: Amid misinformation, Wikipedia's edits about the pandemic shoot up

One of the most cascading effects of the coronavirus outbreak (COVID-19) is that both information and misinformation is flooding the internet. That seems to have led to more than 12,000 edits by thousands of editors on Wikipedia's article about the pandemic.

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The largest free online encyclopedia said on Friday that as coronavirus (COVID-19) news is piling up, it has seen more than 12,000 edits by thousands of editors on Wikipedia's article about the pandemic and that its editors are on work to incorporate the necessary edits.

In a tweet it said that,

With the advent of social media and a flood of information from across the globe, media outlets play an important role in filtering out misinformation during an outbreak such as the current coronavirus outbreak, which has been classified as a pandemic by World Health Organization (WHO).

People across the world are trying to control misinformation in various ways.

For instance, International Fact-Checking Network, a global network of researchers and journalists spanning 40 countries and an arm of the nonprofit journalism organization the Poynter Institute, has issued more than 800 fact checks related to the coronavirus outbreak in last seven weeks. Internet giants such as Facebook, Twitter, and Google too have chalked out steps they are taking to address misinformation.

WHO is also working to share reliable information in a range of languages as the world comes under the grip of the deadly virus. According to WHO's data, as on March 12, 2020, more than 125,000 cases of coronavirus have been confirmed from 118 countries and territories and the death toll has risen to 4,613. In India, Ministry of Health's numbers say that 81 persons have been confirmed to have the COVID-19 strain of the coronavirus. It also said that the number includes foreign nationals.

(Edited by Kanishk Singh)