FSI’s researchers assess health and medicine through the lenses of economics, nutrition and politics. They’re studying and influencing public health policies of local and national governments and the roles that corporations and nongovernmental organizations play in providing health care around the world. Scholars look at how governance affects citizens’ health, how children’s health care access affects the aging process and how to improve children’s health in Guatemala and rural China. They want to know what it will take for people to cook more safely and breathe more easily in developing countries.
FSI professors investigate how lifestyles affect health. What good does gardening do for older Americans? What are the benefits of eating organic food or growing genetically modified rice in China? They study cost-effectiveness by examining programs like those aimed at preventing the spread of tuberculosis in Russian prisons. Policies that impact obesity and undernutrition are examined; as are the public health implications of limiting salt in processed foods and the role of smoking among men who work in Chinese factories. FSI health research looks at sweeping domestic policies like the Affordable Care Act and the role of foreign aid in affecting the price of HIV drugs in Africa.
The Stanford Internet Observatory will host a panel of speakers presenting views on new products and services intended to protect children in encrypted spaces. As part of our ongoing workshop series "Balancing Trust and Safety in End-to-end Encrypted Platforms," we facilitate open and productive dialogue on this divisive and controversial topic to find common ground and areas of compromise.
The webinar will include remarks from representatives from academia (UC Berkeley, Stanford), Industry (Apple), civil liberties organizations (ACLU, CDT) and child safety organizations (NCMEC, Thorn)
Join the Stanford Internet Observatory for a conversation with US Surgeon General Vivek H. Murthy, MD, MBA, where he will discuss slowing the spread of health misinformation, both during the COVID-19 pandemic and beyond.
Health misinformation is a major threat to public health because it can cause confusion, sow mistrust, harm people’s health, and undermine public health efforts. Although health misinformation is not a recent phenomenon, the COVID-19 pandemic has exacerbated an already growing issue. While information has enabled people to stay safe and informed throughout the pandemic, it has also led to confusion. The rising use of technology platforms, such as social media companies, online retailers, and search engines, can helped connect and inform people, but at the same time, many platforms can also drive misinformation to users.
To gain insight into how Chinese state media is communicating about the coronavirus pandemic to the outside world, we analyzed a collection of posts from their English-language presence on Facebook. We observed three recurring behaviors: sharing positive stories and promoting the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) pandemic response, rewriting recent history in a manner favorable to the CCP as the coronavirus pandemic evolved, and using targeted ads to spread preferred messages. Although spin is not unique to state actors, paid ad campaigns to promote government-run state media pages containing misinformation and conspiracies are problematic. Our findings suggest that platforms should implement clearer disclosure of state-sponsored communications at a minimum, and consider refusing paid posts from such entities.
Recent public outcries over facial recognition technology, police and state usage of automated surveillance tools, and racially motivated disinformation on social media have underscored the ways in which new digital technologies threaten to exacerbate existing racial and social cleavages. What is known about how digital technologies are contributing to racial tensions, what key questions remain unanswered, and what policy changes, by government or tech platforms, might help?
On Wednesday, September 23rd, from 10 a.m. - 11 a.m. Pacific Time, please join us for Race and Technology, with Kelly Born, Executive Director of the Stanford Cyber Policy Center, in conversation with Julie Owono, the Executive Director of Internet Sans Frontières, a digital rights advocacy organization based in France, an affiliate of the Berkman Klein Center for Internet and Society at Harvard and at Stanford’s Digital Civil Society Lab, and a member of Facebook’s Oversight Board; Mutale Nkonde, CEO of AI for the People, a member of the recently formed TikTok Content Advisory Council, and a fellow at Stanford’s Digital Civil Society Lab; and Safiya Noble, Associate Professor at UCLA in the Departments of Information Studies and African American Studies, and author of Algorithms of Oppression.
The event is open to the public, but registration is required.
Please join the Cyber Policy Center for Exploring Potential “Solutions” to Online Disinformation, hosted by Cyber Policy Center's Kelly Born, with guests Adam Berinsky, Mitsui Professor of Political Science at MIT and Director of the MIT Political Experiments Research Lab (PERL) at MIT, David Rand, Erwin H. Schell Professor and an Associate Professor of Management Science and Brain and Cognitive Sciences, and Director of the Human Cooperation Laboratoryand the Applied Cooperation Teamat MIT, and Avi Tuschman, Founder & CIO, Pinpoint Predictive. The session is open but registraton is required.
Adam Berinsky is the Mitsui Professor of Political Science at MIT and serves as the director of the MIT Political Experiments Research Lab (PERL). He is also a Faculty Affiliate at the Institute for Data, Systems, and Society (IDSS). Berinsky received his PhD from the University of Michigan in 2000. He is the author of "In Time of War: Understanding American Public Opinion from World War II to Iraq" (University of Chicago Press, 2009). He is also the author of "Silent Voices: Public Opinion and Political Participation in America" (Princeton University Press, 2004) and has published articles in many journals. He is currently the co-editor of the Chicago Studies in American Politics book series at the University of Chicago Press. He is also the recipient of multiple grants from the National Science Foundation and was a fellow at the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences.
David Rand is the Erwin H. Schell Professor and an Associate Professor of Management Science and Brain and Cognitive Sciences at MIT Sloan, and the Director of the Human Cooperation Laboratory and the Applied Cooperation Team. Bridging the fields of behavioral economics and psychology, David’s research combines mathematical/computational models with human behavioral experiments and online/field studies to understand human behavior. His work uses a cognitive science perspective grounded in the tension between more intuitive versus deliberative modes of decision-making, and explores topics such as cooperation/prosociality, punishment/condemnation, perceived accuracy of false or misleading news stories, political preferences, and the dynamics of social media platform behavior.
Avi Tuschman is a Stanford StartX entrepreneur and founder of Pinpoint Predictive, where he currently serves as Chief Innovation Officer and Board Director. He’s spent the past five years developing the first Psychometric AI-powered data-enrichment platform, which ranks 260 million individuals for performance marketing and risk management applications. Tuschman is an expert on the science of heritable psychometric traits. His book and research on human political orientation have been covered in peer-reviewed and mainstream media from 25 countries. Previous to his career in tech, he advised current and former heads of state as well as multilateral development banks in the Western Hemisphere. Tuschman completed his undergraduate and doctoral degrees in evolutionary anthropology at Stanford.
Please join the Cyber Policy Center for Towards Cyber Peace, Closing the Accountability Gap, hosted by Cyber Policy Center's Marietje Schaake, along with guests Stéphane Duguin, CEO of the Cyber Peace Institute and Camille François, CIO of Graphika and Mozilla Fellow. The discussion will focus on the challenges to cyber peace, and the work being done to chart a path forward. The session is open to the public, but registration is required.
Marietje Schaake is the international policy director at Stanford University’s Cyber Policy Center and international policy fellow at Stanford’s Institute for Human-Centered Artificial Intelligence. She was named President of the Cyber Peace Institute. Between 2009 and 2019, Marietje served as a Member of European Parliament for the Dutch liberal democratic party where she focused on trade, foreign affairs and technology policies. Marietje is affiliated with a number of non-profits including the European Council on Foreign Relations and the Observer Research Foundation in India and writes a monthly column for the Financial Times and a bi-monthly column for the Dutch NRC newspaper.
Camille François works on cyber conflict and digital rights online. She is the Chief Innovation Officer at Graphika, where she leads the company’s work to detect and mitigate disinformation, media manipulation and harassment. Camille was previously the Principal Researcher at Jigsaw, an innovation unit at Google that builds technology to address global security challenges and protect vulnerable users. Camille has advised governments and parliamentary committees on both sides of the Atlantic on policy issues related to cybersecurity and digital rights. She served as a special advisor to the Chief Technology Officer of France in the Prime Minister’s office, working on France’s first Open Government roadmap. Camille is a Mozilla Fellow, a Berkman-Klein Center affiliate, and a Fulbright scholar. She holds a masters degree in human rights from the French Institute of Political Sciences (Sciences-Po) and a masters degree in international security from the School of International and Public Affairs (SIPA) at Columbia University. François’ work has been featured in various publications, including the New York Times, WIRED, Washington Post, Bloomberg Businessweek, Globo and Le Monde.
Stéphane Duguin is the Chief Executive Officer of the CyberPeace Institute. His mission is to coordinate a collective response to decrease the frequency, impact, and scale of cyberattacks by sophisticated actors. Building on his hands-on experience in countering and analyzing cyber operations and information operations which impact civilians and civilian infrastructure, he leads the Institute with the aim of holding malicious actors to account for the harms they cause. Prior to this position, Stéphane Duguin was a senior manager and innovation coordinator at Europol. He led key operational projects to counter both cybercrime and online terrorism, such as the setup of the European Cybercrime Centre (EC3), the Europol Innovation Lab, and the European Internet Referral Unit (EU IRU). A leader in digital transformation, his work focused on the implementation of innovative responses to a large-scale abuse of the cyberspace, notably on the convergence of disruptive technologies and public-private partnerships.
Please join the Cyber Policy Center for Tech & Wellbeing in the Era of Covid-19 with Jeff Hancock from Stanford University, Amy Orben from Emmanuel College, and Erica Pelavin, Co-Founder of My Digital TAT2, in conversation with Kelly Born, Executive Director of the Cyber Policy Center. The session will explore the risks and opportunities technologies pose to users’ wellbeing; what we know about the impact of technology on mental health, particularly for teens; how the current pandemic may change our perceptions of technology; and ways in which teens are using apps, influencers and platforms to stay connected under Covid-19.
Dr. Amy Orben is College Research Fellow at Emmanuel College and the MRC Cognition and Brain Sciences Unit. Her work using large-scale datasets to investigate social media use and teenage mental health has been published in a range of leading scientific journals. The results have put into question many long-held assumptions about the potential risks and benefits of ’screen time'. Alongside her research, Amy campaigns for the use of improved statistical methodology in the behavioural sciences and the adoption of more transparent and open scientific practices, having co-founded the global ReproducibiliTea initiative. Amy also regularly contributes to both media and policy debate, having recently given evidence to the UK Commons Science and Technology Select Committee and various governmental investigations.
Jeff Hancock is founding director of the Stanford Social Media Lab and is a Professor in the Department of Communication at Stanford University. Professor Hancock and his group work on understanding psychological and interpersonal processes in social media. The team specializes in using computational linguistics and experiments to understand how the words we use can reveal psychological and social dynamics, such as deception and trust, emotional dynamics, intimacy and relationships, and social support. Recently Professor Hancock has begun work on understanding the mental models people have about algorithms in social media, as well as working on the ethical issues associated with computational social science.
Erica Pelavin, is an educator, public speaker, and Co-Founder and Director of Teen Engagement at My Digital TAT2. Working from a strength-based perspective, Erica has expertise in bullying prevention, relational aggression, digital safety, social emotional learning, and conflict resolution. Dr. Pelavin has a passion for helping young people develop the skills to become their own advocates and cares deeply about helping school communities foster empathy and respect. In her role at My Digital TAT2, Erica leads all programming for high schoolers including the youth led podcast Media in the Middle, the teen advisory boards and an annual summer internship program. Her work with teens directly impacts and informs the developmental school based curriculum. Erica is also a high school counselor at Eastside College Prep in East Palo Alto, CA.
The end of the COVID-19 pandemic will depend on our ability to address vaccine hesitancy, one of the top 10 threats to global health, before a vaccine is put on the market. Meeting the Challenge of Vaccination Hesitancy, a report published in June 2020 by the Sabin-Aspen Vaccine Science & Policy Group, lays out actionable steps that leaders across healthcare, research, philanthropy and technology can take to build confidence in vaccines and vaccinations.
Stanford Internet Observatory research manager Renée DiResta co-authors a paper in the report, "Online Misinformation about Vaccines," outlining the tactics that have made anti-vaccine communities so effective online and the limitations to existing social media platform responses intended to feed factual information to users.
In the June 2020 Sabin-Aspen Vaccine Science Policy Report, "Meeting the Challenge of Vaccination Hesitancy," Stanford Internet Observatory research manager Renée DiResta and First Draft lead strategist Claire Wardle write about how anti-vaccination movements' effective storytelling helps spread misinformation online.
Since early March, the epicenter of the COVID-19 outbreak has shifted from China to the rest of the world, particularly to the United States and Europe. In an effort to boost its image as a “responsible global leader,” Beijing has shipped medical supplies to countries battling the pandemic—an effort dubbed “mask diplomacy.” However, the impact of mask diplomacy on China’s international reputation has been mixed: a wealth of articles has argued that these efforts may have done more harm than good (see here, here and here). Chinese diplomats and state media have taken to Twitter to defend Beijing and to praise its donations of medical supplies abroad. We have been monitoring these Twitter posts to understand how Beijing attempts to shape the narrative surrounding its role in the coronavirus pandemic.
In this study, we examine Beijing’s narratives about its donations and shipments of masks, personal protective equipment (PPE) and other medical resources. We compiled a dataset of tweets by official Chinese state media outlets that contain the keywords “donation(s),” “donate(s/d),” “PPE,” “equipment” and/or “mask(s).” This dataset includes 3,144 tweets from 11 English-language Chinese media outlets between January 18, 2020, which we identified as the first instance of a COVID-related tweet by these accounts, and May 30, 2020. These Twitter accounts have 42.8 million followers combined, ranging from 7.6 thousand to 13.9 million with a median 1.1 million followers (See endnotes for included outlets). The tweets in our data set average 269 engagements (retweets, replies, and likes).
Key Takeaways:
Overall, Chinese state media highlight China’s outward shipments and downplays shipments China has received from other countries. We observed differences in the framing of these shipments across several analyzed countries, including Italy, Canada, Pakistan and Japan.
In addition, we find that Chinese shipments are framed in the context of Beijing’s foreign policy goals in the recipient country, such as shipments to Canada mentioning Huawei and the (then) ongoing Huawei trial in Canada.
Since late March 2020, global coverage about China’s mask diplomacy has become increasingly negative. Perhaps as a result, Chinese state media coverage of donations has since significantly decreased.
China’s Use of Mask Diplomacy Surged In Mid March and Has Since Decreased
We find that China’s mask diplomacy on Twitter is highly reactive to global developments about COVID-19 as well as foreign coverage about China’s mask diplomacy. Donation-related coverage surged in the latter half of March, when the spread of coronavirus within China slowed but became more serious internationally. Tweet volume has decreased significantly since early April, coinciding with the increased attention that Chinese mask donations have received in mainstream Western media and the associated backlash it has generated in Europe and North America.
Figure 1. Number of weekly tweets from January to May 2020 from English-language Chinese state media accounts.
From January to February, tweets focused on the shortage of medical masks and equipment within China and domestic efforts to increase mask production. There was significant coverage about how Chinese companies and factories successfully increased daily mask production to meet domestic needs. Chinese state media also sometimes expressed gratitude towards certain countries for donating medical resources to Wuhan and other Chinese cities. However, for the most part, coverage remained China-centric, with only few mentions of other countries by name.
Mentions of Beijing’s outward donations first appeared in tweets by Chinese state media in late February, first about Japan. This coincided with the surge in global coverage about Japan, as guests onboard the Diamond Princess Cruise Ship began to be cleared and released to disembark the ship on February 20. In the last week of February, donations to South Korea received extensive coverage on Chinese state media, similarly coinciding with increased reports about an outbreak surge in the country. In South Korea, after a member of the Shincheonji religious organization was confirmed on February 18 to have contracted the virus, cases doubled in the country in 24 hours. China highlighted its donations to South Korea and especially the city of Daegu, where the Christian sect held multiple gatherings linked to the coronavirus spread.
As outbreaks increased globally but especially in Europe and North America, tweets began to reorient towards focusing on virus updates abroad and Chinese donations to those countries. However, total tweet volume did not surge until the week of March 16, when China began reporting the lack of locally transmitted cases domestically. This surge also followed the incident of the Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson falsely speculating that the U.S. military had introduced the virus to Wuhan. During this time, donation-related coverage consisted of nearly 40 tweets a day, compared to closer to 20 tweets per day before mid-March.
The combination of a more confrontational tone by Chinese diplomats and the increase in tweets from official Chinese accounts on Twitter, however, drew widespread criticism in mainstream media in the West about China’s “mask diplomacy.” Some reports cited European lawmakers for saying that these efforts are causing China to “lose” Europe while others painted Beijing as strategically using the pandemic to increase geopolitical influence. In addition, China’s Twitter diplomacy also drew criticism domestically among the Chinese academic community, many of whom warned that a confrontational style of “wolf warrior” diplomacy would push countries further away and increase distrust of China’s intentions. Perhaps in response to both global and domestic backlash, donation-related coverage by Chinese state media on Twitter began to decline in early-to-mid April.
Tweets Show High Variation in Messaging and Tone Towards Different Countries
At least one-third of the tweets mention specific countries: the names of 126 countries and territories are mentioned a cumulative 1,100 times (excluding China). While these countries span all regions, coverage about Europe, Asia and Sub-Saharan Africa is more extensive than other regions. Since many countries are mentioned, individual country mentions are low. For example, although Sub-Saharan Africa is the most referenced region, the most frequently mentioned country in the region, Kenya, is named in only 27 tweets.
We observed that there are significantly more tweets about China’s outward donations than about donations it has received. When China does mention countries by name for their donations to China, some countries are mentioned more often than others, and donations are framed differently depending on the source country.
To investigate these differences, we expanded our prior country-name search (e.g. “Italy”) to include adjectives (“Italian”) and capitals (“Rome”), and subset the data by mentions of Italy, Japan, Iran, Russia, Pakistan, Canada, Kenya and Brazil, which are all frequently mentioned within their respective region. Table 1 provides the number of tweets per country.
Table 1. Countries and number of tweets containing a mention of each country.
For each country, we manually coded all tweets for whether they mention a shipment from China, a shipment to China, or neither. We count both donations and exports of medical equipment as “shipments” and aggregate source and recipient to the state level. This means our count captures shipments by individuals, cities, provinces, states, businesses, and non-government organizations in addition to national governments.
When discussing shipments that China received, out of the analyzed countries, Japan is the most frequently mentioned (30 tweets), followed by Pakistan (8 tweets) and Canada and Russia (3 tweets each) (see Figure 2). While China did thank the European Union for its 56 ton donation it received little overall coverage, and Italy itself is only mentioned once as a donor, in a tweet refuting allegations that China had first accepted Italian equipment donations and later forced Italy to buy the equipment back. The Canadian government’s donation of 16 tons’ worth of protective equipment similarly did not receive a mention; all three tweets mentioning shipments from Canada to China focused on donations by Chinese Canadians that were significantly smaller. In contrast, Japanese donations are mentioned as “generous” and “selfless,” and Chinese state media repeatedly highlight China’s “gratitude” towards Japan. The positive narrative surrounding Japan could be attributed to improvements in bilateral relations, a point we return to below.
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Figure 2: Top: The number of tweets mentioning shipments received by China. Shipments from Japan and Pakistan feature prominently. Bottom: The number of tweets mentioning shipments sent by China. Italy and Japan are most frequently mentioned as recipient countries of Chinese shipments.
China’s outward donations, on the other hand, feature prominently in our dataset (see Figure 2). For every country, shipments sent by China are mentioned at least twice as often as the shipments it has received. For example, the lack of discussion about Italy’s donations stands in stark contrast to shipments of “much needed medical supplies” from China to Italy, which receive 76 mentions. While donations to Japan are also mentioned frequently (72 times), the narrative surrounding these differ from those about other countries. State media frequently frame donations to Japan as reciprocating Tokyo’s goodwill, with China’s nationalistic media outlet Global Times boasting that COVID-19 was bringing Japan and China together.
Toyokawa in Japan donated supplies to support China last month, and Wuxi’s Xinwu district returned the favor by sending 50,000 masks to Japan on March 24, after learning that mask inventories in Toyokawa were insufficient during the COVID-19 outbreak. #coronavirus#Covid_19pic.twitter.com/Qnk9V9YC4R— China Daily (@ChinaDaily) March 25, 2020
China’s Mask Diplomacy Reflects its Foreign Policy Goals
In addition, we observed examples that country-specific coverage is framed in accordance with Beijing’s foreign policy goals, suggesting that China’s mask diplomacy on Twitter is strategic. For example, four tweets about Canada reference the controversial Chinese telecommunications company Huawei, which has received criticism in the West for its ties to the Communist Party. These tweets highlight how Huawei had been “quietly” shipping medical equipment to help Canada’s fight against the coronavirus (for example, here and here), illustrating a conscious effort to improve perceptions of Huawei.
One of these tweets directly references the (then) ongoing trial of Huawei executive Meng Wanzhou, who was detained in 2018 by Canadian authorities in Vancouver at the extradition request of the U.S. for alleged violations of U.S. sanctions against Iran. The arrest and trial has strained Sino-Canadian relations, with Beijing retaliating with its own arrest of Canadian citizens in China. The Chinese ambassador to Canada has called Meng’s case “the biggest issue in [the] bilateral relationship.”
Chinese telecommunications giant #Huawei has been quietly shipping millions of masks and other protective equipment to #Canada to help front-line medical workers to cope with the deadly #coronavirus outbreak in Canada.— China Daily (@ChinaDaily) April 9, 2020
#Huawei Technologies is donating 6 million masks and other medical supplies to Canada amid worsening #COVID19 outbreak there. Canadian PM Justin Trudeau said Tuesday that his government's policy towards Huawei won't be swayed by the donations. pic.twitter.com/CIMD608aJQ— Global Times (@globaltimesnews) April 8, 2020
Similarly, the overwhelming expressions of gratitude towards Japan mirror the improvement in Sino-Japanese relations since the outbreak of COVID-19 in early 2020. Tokyo, for its part, has largely refrained from blaming China for the virus, reflecting an important part of Japanese prime minister Shinzo Abe’s foreign policy that aims to improve relations with China. Gratuitous framing of medical donations from Japan (and also South Korea) illustrates Beijing’s attempt to better relations with its neighbors as Sino-American relations deteriorate.
Serbia’s growing importance to China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) can also be observed in the narratives that state media push on Twitter. Among the tweets that mention President Xi directly in the context of coronavirus-related donations, three of four reference Serbia; the other is an expression of gratitude towards Pakistan. In addition, a noteworthy difference about tweets referencing Serbia is that a number of them frame Chinese donations in a cooperative tone. For example, there is a significant degree of emphasis about how Chinese investment, shipments or donations led to improvements in testing capability as well as the collaborative nature of these efforts. This mirrors China’s attempts in recent years to paint BRI as a collaborative effort that involves foreign companies, after suspicions that BRI projects would result in China exercising significant control over recipient countries.
A new COVID-19 testing lab, parts of which were donated by Chinese companies, opened in the Serbian capital on Monday. The lab is the first of two laboratories to be installed by the Beijing Genomics Institute (BGI) group in Serbia. #CombatCoronavirus#UnityIsStrengthpic.twitter.com/F98xTegmaC— CCTV (@CCTV) April 22, 2020
Conclusion
As COVID-19 spread globally, China has aimed to shake off its portrayal as the source of the coronavirus by painting itself as a responsible and benevolent global leader in times of crisis. However, China’s reliance on high-profile coverage of its medical donations has backfired. Chinese academics have since urged Beijing to tone down language about these activities on Twitter. Despite some lingering mentions of Chinese donations, such as this June 11 mention of a shipment to Lebanon, Beijing’s Twitter mask diplomacy has significantly waned since its peak in March.
Mask diplomacy appears to have achieved some success in certain countries, such as Serbia and Hungary, while in others it has served merely to strengthen suspicions about Beijing’s strategic intentions. In some cases, Beijing has undermined its own efforts by reportedly demanding public praise for its medical supply shipments and donations.
The variation in Beijing’s narratives and its response to the global backlash demonstrates that China’s public diplomacy is nascent and still evolving; Beijing has also shown to be highly sensitive to foreign and domestic reception of its efforts. Whether China will be able to tailor its messages effectively to win the hearts and minds of people around the world remains to be seen.
Part of the Virality Project (China)
The Stanford Internet Observatory's Virality Project is a new global study aimed at understanding disinformation dynamics specific to the COVID-19 crisis. As the pandemic became the primary concern of almost every nation on the planet, the virus significantly shifted the landscape for viral mis- and disinformation.
This post is part of that ongoing project.
As the coronavirus pandemic spread around the world, RT’s English-language branches worked to undermine lockdown measures in Western countries while extolling the Russian and Chinese governments’ success in containing the virus’s spread.
China has been shipping medical supplies to countries battling the coronavirus pandemic, an effort dubbed “mask diplomacy.” It remains to be seen if China will be able to tailor its messages effectively to win hearts and minds of people around the world.
Join Cyber Policy Center, June 3rd at 10am PST for The Accelerated Shift to Online Retail Under Covid-19, and Risks Associated with Underlying Dynamic Pricing Technologies with Christo Wilson at Northeastern University and Ramsi Woodcock at University of Kentucky.
The hallmarks of the Covid-19 (a shortage of masks, hand sanitizer, food, along with an acceleration of the shift to online retail) are affording retailers the opportunity to use the dynamic pricing technologies already ubiquitous in online retail in order to ration access to goods that are in temporarily short supply. In a time of crisis, dynamic pricing may run afoul of state laws prohibiting price gouging. But the practice also raises important questions about both the equity of rationing with price and the safety of doing so. Dynamic pricing online may be pricing less wealthy Americans out of online goods and services, forcing them into riskier in-person transactions at brick and mortar store locations. Fortunately, the same technologies that make dynamic pricing possible also make more equitable alternatives to rationing with price cheap and effective for online retailers.
Figure 1. Number of weekly tweets from January to May 2020 from English-language Chinese state media accounts.
Table 1. Countries and number of tweets containing a mention of each country.
Figure 2: Top: The number of tweets mentioning shipments received by China. Shipments from Japan and Pakistan feature prominently. Bottom: The number of tweets mentioning shipments sent by China. Italy and Japan are most frequently mentioned as recipient countries of Chinese shipments.
