RAPID: World Wide Access to COVID-19 Information

Response to a worldwide crisis, such as the current COVID-19 pandemic, requires extensive communication involving different groups (governments, scientists, healthcare providers, common people). The Internet does provide an effective means of communication ? but rumor, non-validated theories or outright propaganda also propagate to wide audiences over the Internet, and have the potential to cause significant harm. It is tempting to conclude that strong Internet controls are necessary in times of crisis to limit the spread of malcontent. On the other hand, more free flow of information is also beneficial. It can enable rapid yet nuanced deployment of resources to critical needs in times of such a crisis. It is therefore an open question whether open or strict information control policies work better in a pandemic situation. In this project, researchers study Internet censorship policies in several countries ? ranging from those employ very strict controls (e.g. China, Russia) through moderate (e.g. South Korea, India) to very open (e.g. USA, Germany, Japan) ? and characterize how they control access to information, specifically related to COVID-19, during the course of the pandemic. This study would help decide best practice in Internet communications and thereby help to protect national health.

This study collects data regarding read and write access to COVID-19 related information on the Internet, from vantage points in a range of countries. Chosen countries are well-connected to the Internet, geographically diverse, and different in their approaches to Internet censorship: some strict censors, some semi-free, and some known for free speech (as reported in the Internet Freedom Study, by Freedom House). Further, as access controls may vary within a country, multiple vantage points are used ? ideally, one in the "customer cone" of each major AS in the country. From these vantage points, four measures are checked twice a month: (1) Whether users can access sources considered authoritative by the Johns Hopkins University's Center for Systems Science and Engineering Coronavirus Dashboard, Center for Disease Control and Prevention, World Health Organization, and peer-reviewed journals such as Science, Nature, NEJM etc. (2) Whether users can access non-authoritative sources, such as websites identified as spreading misinformation (identified by researchers following social networks). (3) What social media sites users can access, and whether these are known to be censored (e.g. can users in country A reach Twitter, Facebook etc., or only local sites like qq? Are these sites strictly filtered?) (4) If a user sends an HTTP query with a manually-constructed trigger phrase (say, "coronavirus bioweapon"), is the query blocked? The data collected in this study is correlated against trusted measures of pandemic impact (time-to-peak and mortality), and can help identify the Internet control strategies associated with success in containing and recovering from the COVID-19 pandemic.

This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.