Four Key Questions to Guide Human Rights–based Social Listening during Infodemics

TL;DR

This paper explores how human rights can guide ethical social listening during health crises like the COVID-19 pandemic to combat misinformation.

Contribution

The paper introduces four key questions to ensure social listening aligns with human rights principles during infodemics.

Findings

Human rights provide ethical guardrails for social listening during health threats.

Social listening must consider rights to health, life, and free speech.

A rights-based approach can lead to more equitable and effective public health responses.

Abstract

This paper considers what a human rights–based approach to the use of social listening to counter infodemics during a serious health threat might entail, using COVID-19 as a primary example. The paper considers social listening in the context of human rights including health, life, free speech, and privacy, and outlines what a rights-compliant form of social listening to infodemics might entail. The paper argues that human rights offer guardrails against illicit and unethical forms of social listening as well as signposts towards a more equitable, ethical, and effective public health tool. The paper first expands on the human rights dimensions of COVID-19, infodemics, and social listening. Second, it considers the human rights dimensions of social listening in relation to rights to health, life, and free speech, given international human rights law principles for limiting these rights. Finally, using this framework, the paper poses four key questions to frame a rights-based approach to social listening: Why do we listen? How do we listen? Who do we listen to and who is doing the listening? And what are the outcomes of such listening?

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