After Thornton residents sent him screenshots of someone claiming online that the city’s water supply was unsafe due to the COVID-19 coronavirus, Todd Barnes fired back on Nextdoor in all caps.

“YOUR WATER IS SAFE!” wrote Barnes, the communications director for the city. “Please people, let’s be responsible with the information that is shared during this difficult time.”

Barnes, who has worked for Thornton for 20 years, is one of the many public employees seeking to swat down misinformation and rumors on social media that can be routinely conspiratorial on a good week and alarmist during a pandemic. He is not able to see everything, particularly on Nextdoor, where only those who are verified neighborhood residents can post to their community’s message board.

“Sometimes it’s a matter of just putting the facts out there and you get a lot of people who back you,” he said. “I don’t think some people are going to believe what we put out no matter what.” The original message, which the poster since deleted, implied that local government could not be trusted to keep people safe. (The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has clarified that municipal filtration systems should remove the virus from drinking water.)

“Right now in certain Facebook groups there are rumors that circulate claiming I will abuse some emergency powers that a mayor has,” said Greg Mills, the mayor of Brighton. “Some thought I was going to shut down restaurants and bars when I never planned on doing this. Now that the governor has done that instead, the people won’t need to blame me anymore.”

Not every jurisdiction has encountered misinformation or dedicates time to seeking it out. Instead, many officials prefer to simply push out factual details and hope that residents will gravitate to reputable sources.

“Must be honest that I am – and we are – spending our time learning [about the virus] and messaging appropriately as we learn,” Central City Mayor Jeremy Fey said. “No time to explore the clutter of poor information that is out there.”

“You guys are lying”

Sometimes, though, online commenters calling into question the severity of coronavirus measures can earn a rebuke from local experts. 

“The sky is NOT falling! The sky is NOT falling! It is the media having a field day with new flu,” wrote one person below a Facebook post from the city of Denver about service cancellations.

“This is not necessary. Come on!!!!!!” commented another person after the city announced the closure of motor vehicle offices. To that statement, the city’s social media workers replied: “These measures are necessary. Please do not disseminate false information like this online or in person,” read the message from the city’s account.

Despite the occasional clarification, Alton Dillard, a media relations employee for Denver’s joint information center, said that the city does not engage in dialogue with commenters over social media, nor does it delete misinformed comments.

Elisabeth Lawrence disagreed with the notion that a one-way flow of accurate information to residents was the limit of her role as a Summit County commissioner.

“I can’t always wait for the people to come to me. Sometimes I need to go to the people,” she said on Tuesday, immediately after posting a Facebook live video to her page with a coronavirus update. “I have seen a lot of, ‘you guys aren’t telling us everything’ or ‘you guys are lying.’ “

The largest category of misinformation that Lawrence encountered pertained to testing for the virus. She has seen people allege that no tests are occurring or that the tests have run out. Some of what people say, she realized, was simply misinterpretation of governmental directives.

Elected officials play a role in counteracting falsities. Barnes said that above a certain “threshold,” Thornton’s mayor or the chiefs of police and fire might have to convey a message, such as after the December 2017 mass shooting in a city WalMart. Otherwise, alert residents bring concerns directly to him.

“We had several people do screenshots and send us information,” he said. “Nextdoor is a very valuable tool for us. I can reach 50,000 people via Nextdoor.”

He did not characterize Nextdoor as being more prone to rumors than other forms of social media, saying that people most often want to be helpful to their neighbors on the platform. Nevertheless, his staff of seven people monitors replies to their posts.

Cooperation from online administrators

Lawrence said that Summit County employees generally do not ask her to intercede publicly on behalf of the government, but more often she contacts staff to verify whether details she has seen are true.

“I am willing to serve as the public face of doom and gloom if I need to be,” she added. She understood the potential downside of social media, saying that the details in traditional press releases can leak out in the time it takes to formulate an accurate announcement.

On other occasions, the immediacy of social media can create, then retract concerns in a matter of minutes. In Montrose County, Katie Yergensen received a text message on Monday containing a Facebook screenshot declaring two positive coronavirus cases in her county. In reality, the state had reported zero.

“It’s a team effort” to combat false stories, said Yergensen, the media relations manager for the county. “We are a small town. Rumors spread rather quickly, and I think one of the biggest challenges of a communicator is we’re doing our best to reassure the public.”

The county, she said, has a good relationship with local Facebook group administrators. Indeed, the post was removed within a short time of Yergensen receiving the image. Still, she is wary to describe what she is seeing as purposeful misinformation designed to mislead the public.

“I think this is just a very rapidly evolving and rapidly changing situation, and I think it’s hard for businesses and the general public to stay up to date on new mandates,” she said.