Surrey charity warns displaced young people being targeted by fake news on vaccines
The Big Leaf Foundation says criminal gangs are exploiting the pandemic
A Surrey charity says fake news about coronavirus and vaccinations is being deliberately targeted towards displaced young people by criminal gangs.
The Big Leaf Foundation warns many have been left even more isolated by the pandemic as they live in lockdown miles from home.
It comes as disinformation around the rollout of the coronavirus vaccine has been aimed at financially exploiting vulnerable groups.
Kate Cable, Programme Manager of Big Leaf Foundation, said: “When you are so far from home, when you are without advice, you are open to a real reliance on what you can find online.”
Explaining other fake news that has been potentially misleading displaced young people, she added: “That COVID doesn’t exist or COVID only affects a certain amount of people, if you put lemon juice in your eyes it will cure COVID and certain potions and homemade medicines that you can put to protect yourself – so it’s actually quite potentially dangerous stuff getting through.”
The Big Leaf Foundation has been working to provide resources highlighting dangers, with tips on how to verify if a message is real.
Kate explains that tackling the issue isn't as simple as pointing people towards reliable sources: “We’ve got 14 active languages that we have to translate in and these aren’t always mainstream languages that you can easily access through Google Translate, they’re not.
“We also have the other issue that if people aren’t reading, we need to find a way of getting this information to them in an audio source that they can also understand and appreciate.”