CheckMate is a weekly newsletter from RMIT FactLab which recaps the latest in the world of fact checking and misinformation, drawing on the work of FactLab and its sister organisation, RMIT ABC Fact Check.
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CheckMate April 1, 2022
Good morning, and welcome to our revamped newsletter.
With so much going on in the world — from an impending federal election to the Russia-Ukraine war and the evolving COVID-19 pandemic — RMIT FactLab has decided to broaden this newsletter to include anything and everything from the world of fact checking and misinformation.
That means CoronaCheck is now CheckMate.
We're still providing a weekly inoculation against misinformation, which will land in your inbox at the same time, but its remit has been extended.
And don't worry, CoronaCheck hasn't disappeared: it will remain an important component of this new format.
To kick off, this week we've debunked a meme about old-age poverty rates in Australia, spoken to fact checkers on the frontline in Ukraine and, in COVID news, taken aim at a viral video of Queensland's Chief Health Officer being shared out of context.
Out-of-date meme misrepresents poverty in Australia
A years-old meme comparing the poverty rate for Australians aged over 65 to rates in other OECD countries has resurfaced, as cost of living concerns dominate federal election coverage.
The meme, which features an image of Prime Minister Scott Morrison and a list of 14 countries, alleges that 35.5 per cent of older Australians live in relative poverty, a proportion more than double that of most of the nations listed, including the UK, Poland and Greece.
No direct source is provided for the figures other than a vague reference to the OECD (Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development), which does indeed publish data on the share of elderly people experiencing "relative income poverty".
According to the OECD's latest data, published in July 2021, the proportion of Australians aged 65 and over in relative income poverty — defined as "having an income below half the national median equivalised household disposable income" — was 23.7 per cent, or more than 10 percentage points lower than claimed in the meme.
In fact, not one of the 14 rates listed in the meme match the 2021 data.
This discrepancy is likely because the meme has been circulating since at least February 2019, prior to the last federal election, when the United Australia Party's Clive Palmer posted it to his Facebook page. For the most part, the figures included in the meme align with a 2015 OECD report titled "Pensions at a Glance".
Moreover, while the 2021 figures do show that the old-age poverty rate is higher in Australia than in any of the other countries listed in the meme, that list includes less than half of the OECD's member nations.
With all 38 nations included, Australia ranks 7th, trailing by nearly 20 percentage points top-ranked South Korea, where 43.4 per cent of the population aged 65 and over are classified as experiencing relative income poverty.
It's also worth noting that some experts have previously taken issue with the OECD's old-age poverty measure.
In a 2019 article, for example, the Grattan Institute's Brendan Coates and Tony Chen called the measure "deeply flawed".
"Small changes in reality produce apparently very different outcomes, calculation of the benchmark rests on arbitrary definitions of equivalisation, it does not take into account drawdowns on savings outside superannuation, and it does not adequately account for housing costs," the pair wrote.
According to the Grattan researchers, taking the benefits of home ownership into account halved the proportion of older Australians considered to be in poverty.
CoronaCheck: Queensland CHO did not reveal vaccine-related deaths
A video taken out of context and shared widely online does not show Queensland's Chief Health Officer, Dr John Gerrard, discussing deaths from myocarditis caused by COVID-19 vaccines, contrary to claims.
"We're seeing reports of people having an illness for a short period and then sudden deaths," Dr Gerrard says in the clip.
"We've reported about those earlier on, that's been reported elsewhere in Australia, around the world, where it's myocarditis."
Captions alongside the clip suggest that Dr Gerrard is talking about deaths due to vaccinations, with one post titled: "Anxious Australian Health Official admitting that the vaccinated are dying of myocarditis."
But that's not the case.
The clip shows a short segment of a COVID-19 news conference held in January, in which Dr Gerrard responds to a reporter, saying that he was concerned about "deaths at home".
Neither Dr Gerrard nor the reporter made reference to these deaths being linked to vaccines. Viewed in full context, it is clear the Chief Health Officer's remarks were made in relation to deaths from COVID-19.
While the Therapeutic Goods Administration (TGA) has acknowledged that myocarditis is a "known but very rare side effect" of the Pfizer and Moderna COVID-19 vaccines, a spokesperson confirmed to CheckMate that neither of those jabs had been linked to any deaths.
Additionally, as the TGA has pointed out previously, myocarditis was "seen much more commonly in people who become infected with COVID-19 than in people who are vaccinated".
From Ukraine: Fact checking from the frontline
With the war in Ukraine seemingly at a stalemate, many people are continuing to turn to local fact-checking groups to penetrate the fog of misinformation.
Indeed, fact checkers have arguably become a part of the war effort itself.
"You fall asleep with your phone in your hands," said Olena Churanova, a journalist with Ukraine's StopFake.org. "You wake up with your phone again."
When the conflict erupted, Churanova and her children fled Kyiv and headed to a smaller city in the nation's west where she devotes herself to "debunking Russian bullshit".
"[The] disinformation is really personal right now," she said, telling Fact Check the Russian government was claiming "they have the right to destroy us all".
Enock Nyariki, the International Fact Checking Network's (IFCN) community and impact manager, said it was "hard to overstate" the significance of the work being done by fact checkers covering the conflict.
Disinformation can escalate hostilities by stirring up popular support for war, he said, and also cause "physical, economic, financial and mental harm in a conflict zone".
To date, the global fact-checking community has published more than 2,000 fact checks, many under the banner of #UkraineFacts, while promoting trustworthy sources such as StopFake, VoxUkraine and Bellingcat.
But given reports of journalists being hunted by the Russian military in the besieged Ukrainian city of Mariupol, fact checkers face a grim future in areas that fall under enemy control.
"It's not so wild to think that Ukrainian fact checkers could be targeted, given their prominent role in fighting false information about the conflict," Nyariki said.
"Fact checkers in hostile political environments face the risk of physical harm even as they work under harsh circumstances to combat disinformation."
While such reporting can earn accolades — even a Nobel Peace Prize — Nyariki noted that fact checkers worldwide were sometimes forced to flee their own countries.
Churanova told Fact Check that StopFake's website had received "thousands" of cyberattacks, while the Russian government had also sought to overturn the group's labelling of misinformation on Facebook.
That was before it simply banned all access to the platform inside Russia, as well as to Instagram and Twitter.
Amid the sounds of air raid sirens and the worry over friends and relatives, staying focused on her fact-checking role was not always easy, Churanova admitted.
"Mostly, your thoughts are concentrated around the life and the safety of your family."
She emailed Fact Check a copy of a drawing by her seven-year-old son of Russian and Ukrainian national flags — and tanks.
"It's now what our kids are drawing all the time," she wrote.
Cutting through the budget spin
With a federal election fast approaching, Treasurer Josh Frydenberg was keen to use Tuesday's budget speech to spruik the achievements of the Morrison government.
But with some of his claims lacking critical context, RMIT ABC Fact Check sought to counter the spin.
The fact checkers found that Mr Frydenberg had used a "time travelling trick" — ignoring the effects of inflation — to make the government's spending in areas such as aged care and healthcare appear larger than the reality.
Similarly, a claim that apprenticeship numbers were at record levels conveniently did not take into account population growth. In fact, as a proportion of the working-age population, apprenticeships were highest during the Rudd/Gillard years.
Meanwhile, Mr Frydenberg's assertion that the government had "approved more than 2,800 new or amended listings on the [Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme]" leaned heavily on those amended listings, with experts explaining that including them "exaggerated the government's performance".
Some other claims in the speech that were examined by Fact Check related to bulk-billing rates, university places and jobs for women.
Edited by Ellen McCutchan and David Campbell with thanks to James Milburn
Got a fact that needs checking? Tweet us @ABCFactCheck or send us an email at factcheck@rmit.edu.au
