Concerned that friends in a WhatsApp chat group who live in the eastern parts of Singapore might be worried by online chatter telling people to avoid Eastpoint Mall because of the Wuhan virus, my friend advised us to ignore such rumours. With good intentions, he then forwarded the rumour to show us what we should ignore, thus inadvertently spreading the falsehood even more.
When Singapore confronted the severe acute respiratory syndrome (Sars) crisis in 2003, it did not have to deal with the likes of Facebook, YouTube, WhatsApp, Twitter, Instagram, TikTok and the vast digital universe of blogs, online influencers and citizen journalists.
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