New Media and Mass Communication www.iiste.org ISSN 2224-3267 (Paper) ISSN 2224-3275 (Online) Vol.95, 2021 38 Impact of Social Media in the Fight Against Misinformation on Corona Virus Pandemic Joshua-Luther Ndoye Upoalkpajor Department of Counselling Psychology, University of Education – Winneba, Post Office Box 25, Winneba, Ghana. jlnupoalkpajor@uew.edu.gh Abstract This study examined the impact of social media within the fight against misinformation on coronavirus pandemic. The study therefore assessed the character of coronavirus pandemic information shared on social media sites by undergraduate students in central region of Ghana. Structured questionnaire copies were administered to 355 undergraduate students in University of Education, Winneba, University of Cape Coast, and Cape Coast Technical University. Data was analyzed using descriptive and inferential statistics. Result showed that 71.3% of the scholars across the chosen universities were conscious of social media and made used of it. Facebook was the foremost favourite social media platform followed by Instagram and WhatsApp, while Kinschat, LinkedIn, Skype and BBM were least preferred social media sites. Independent samples test result showed there was no significant gender difference within the preference of social media sites (t = 1.039, p>0.05). The result showed that 81.4% of the scholars had encounter coronavirus pandemic information on social media, while only 24.8% had shared coronavirus pandemic information on social media. Prevention methods and general coronavirus pandemic knowledge were the most sorts of information shared. ANOVA result further revealed significant variation within the sort of coronavirus pandemic information shared on social media among the three universities (F = 5.177; p<0.05). The Post Hoc Test of multiple comparison indicated that the type of coronavirus pandemic information shared in Cape Coast Technical University differed significantly from those shared in University of Education, Winneba and University of Cape Coast respectively. Keywords: SOCIAL MEDIA, MISINFORMATION, CORONA VIRUS PANDEMIC DOI: 10.7176/NMMC/95-05 Publication date: February 28 th 2021 1. Introduction The wave of coronavirus (COVID-19)-related content has become a high-stakes test for social media platforms’ abilities to fight misinformation. False recommendations about how to avoid contracting the virus or what measures infected people should take to avoid spreading it have the potential to cause more sickness and death from a pandemic that has already taken thousands of lives worldwide (World Health Organisation (WHO), (2020). According to data from social media analytics platform Sprinklr, there were more than 19 million mentions related to COVID-19 across social media, blogs and online news sites worldwide on March 11, 2020. For context, mentions of US President Donald Trump on the same day came in at roughly 4 million. Many of the COVID-19 mentions likely came from legitimate sources, but given the novelty of the disease and the fast-changing nature of related news, it’s safe to assume that a large portion was inaccurate or outdated. The current battle against misinformation on most social media platforms is primarily concentrated on so-called “bad actors” that deliberately spread lies and misleading information, sometimes for political gain. Facebook, for example, uses an automated system to serve potentially inaccurate content to third-party fact-checkers who then identify, review and rate inaccurate stories so that their distribution can be reduced. It’s a resource-heavy and time- consuming process, and questions about its effectiveness were raised before the coronavirus conversation exploded on social media. Khoros (2020) emphasized social media as the collection of tools and online space, available to help individual and business to accelerate their Information and Communications needs. Platforms like Twitter and Facebook were also among the earliest sources of accurate COVID-19 information. But since average citizens, celebrities, politicians and others use social platforms to share their coronavirus experiences, air grievances and simply kill