Abstract:

Although false information and rumors have appeared for different purposes throughout the history, it is seen that with the advent of the Internet, false news began to spread more rapidly. Especially with the distortion and reproduction of the realities in the political field, the post-truth period has entered into a period where truth has become worthless. In this period, especially social media causes fake news to spread faster and to reach large masses. This situation may cause disinfection in social media to increase more and cause negative results. Especially in the Covid-19 (new coronavirus) pandemic process, this issue has been seen to reach very serious dimensions. The fake news produced almost daily has been circulated in social networks such as Facebook and Twitter and in WhatsApp groups. Many people believed that this news was true and caused it to spread more quickly on social media. However, people were misled by false social media accounts opened on behalf of the Minister of Health and members of the Coronavirus Scientific Board established within the ministry. In fact, the World Health Organization emphasized that this disinformation is at least as dangerous as the virus. In this study, where a descriptive analysis is used, teyit.org verification platform operating in Turkey has tried to reveal the data regarding the results of the investigation made by the verification platform about the claims circulating in social media in the process of Covid-19 pandemic. In scope of study, the first coronavirus cases seen in Turkey as starting on March 11 are given to claims that arising in one-week period (11-18 March 2020).

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