With the Corona Virus outbreak, many have had their eyes glued to their phone screens for the past few days eager for updated news on the issue. The internet is flooded with data on what countries shut their borders, where the disease is spreading, and how the virus can be prevented. Information is important and desired, and we must make sure that the public has access to the correct information. Fake news is common and many fail to notice them. It is said to be false information that caused people to stock up of consumables such as water and toilet paper. With this, it is clear how significant an effect that information can have of the action of people. Especially as information technology is very developed nowadays, information of all kinds spreads rapidly.
Because of this, there is a policy that bans any COVID 19 related applications that are not approved by the government. While the App Store and the Playstore work to remove these apps off the market, some apps managed to get hundreds of thousand downloads before it got deleted. Some of the deleted apps were said to have fake news which would add to the already bad enough confusion in the world right now. We can not completely assume that all unapproved applications are bad, though it is safe to do so since we must have people know only the correct information when they need it. Thomas Brewsters writes about these deleted apps on the online magazine Forbes. In the article, he showcases the different apps that were subject to the ban. It is clear that some of these apps were rather popular and showed a live map of where the disease was spreading. Though it is better to stay safe for now than to risk false information spreading. In times like now, I would say that these app stores made the correct choice to ensure that people have access to correct information to prevent confusion.
It is interesting that even with all of the horrible things that the coronavirus has caused, people are still out there looking to do even worse things. It is sad. In todays society with all of the technology we have available, it is scary the amount of things people can do to hurt us. Almost everyone in the United States has some sort of access to a smartphone or technology. Hackers and people committing fraud are always looking to get to us and/or hurt us. In this case, I think these fake apps have more of an impact than we may think. In these times, many people are struggling with stress and anxiety and these apps are only making it worse. We all need to be more careful of apps we download and things we decide to click on. I looked more into these apps and this article by CNET says that these apps may actually be able to track and follow your current location. I believe that in the future it is only going to become a more prominent and larger issue that we need to be aware of and educate people who may be more unaware of these issues.
https://www.cnet.com/news/fake-coronavirus-tracking-apps-are-really-malware-that-stalks-its-users/