Antitrust Antitrust

Comment: Online platforms face new misinformation challenges from Covid-19 pandemic

By Xu Yuan , Laurel Henning , Toko Sekiguchi , Wooyoung Lee , Ana Candil , Caio Rinaldi , Dave Perera , Matthew Newman and Cynthia Kroet
  • 02 Apr 2020 04:28
  • 02 Apr 2020 05:13

Online platforms including Twitter, Facebook and Google’s YouTube are in the spotlight over their role as global vectors for misinformation related to the Covid-19 pandemic.

With nearly a third of the world’s population under some form of lockdown, social-media sites and content platforms have played an important role in providing people

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Xu Yuan

Senior Correspondent


Xu Yuan has worked for MLex for seven years, all of them based in Hong Kong. She has reported on a wide range of regulatory topics, including antitrust, cybersecurity and data security, in mainland China, Hong Kong and Taiwan. She has broken numerous stories on policymaking and enforcement involving international companies doing business in the region and done substantial court reporting in Hong Kong. She is currently specializing in covering regulatory issues related to future mobility, including connected vehicles. She previously worked for US TV network NBC in Beijing. She received her undergraduate degree in English Literature and Linguistics from Peking University and a master’s degree from the Journalism and Media Studies Centre at The University of Hong Kong.

Laurel Henning

Senior Correspondent


Laurel is a senior correspondent specializing in competition law, data privacy and security, in Australia and New Zealand. Laurel reports from Sydney on criminal-cartel legislation and white-collar crime, as well as competition and consumer lawsuits involving companies including Google, Meta Platforms and Apple. While at MLex Laurel has also reported boardroom disputes and shareholder campaigns agitating for changes to company strategy. Laurel joined MLex in 2013 and reported for five years on European energy and climate policies from Brussels. In that time, Laurel covered the regulation of emissions and technological developments pertaining to the energy sector within the EU, as well as the Paris agreement in 2015. A graduate of the University of Liverpool, Laurel studied English and French before beginning a career in journalism with MLex.

Toko Sekiguchi

Senior Correspondent, Tokyo


Toko is a senior correspondent in Tokyo covering antitrust, anti-bribery & corruption, financial services and regulatory issues in Japan. Before joining MLex, she has worked as a journalist for The Wall Street Journal, Dow Jones News, Bloomberg News and Time Magazine.

Wooyoung Lee

Correspondent, Seoul


Wooyoung Lee is a correspondent based in MLex’s Seoul office, South Korea, covering antitrust, privacy and data security, mergers and acquisitions and financial services. Wooyoung has more than a decade of experience in journalism, public policy and research. She has worked and written for news outlets including The Korea Herald, Al Jazeera International, Bloomberg BNA, Monocle, among others.

Matthew Newman

Chief Correspondent


Matthew Newman is a chief correspondent for MLex and writes about data protection, privacy, telecoms, cyber security and artificial intelligence. Matthew began his journalism career in 1991 in community newspapers. He worked as a reporter in Riga, Latvia in 1993 and then moved to Chicago where he covered local news. In 1995, he became a personal finance reporter for Dow Jones Newswires, and was then transferred to Brussels in 1999. He specialized in EU regulatory affairs, including trade and telecom issues. He began covering competition for Bloomberg News as an EU court reporter in 2004. In 2010, he was named spokesman for Viviane Reding, the EU’s justice commissioner. In January 2012, he helped launch the commission’s proposal to overall data protection rules.

Cynthia Kroet

Senior Correspondent


Cynthia covers technology and telecom for MLex in Brussels. She previously reported on EU politics and transport policy, as well as Dutch and Belgian politics at newspaper European Voice and publication Politico in Brussels. Prior to that Cynthia worked as a TV and radio producer and multimedia journalist in the Netherlands and UK. Cynthia has degrees in European Studies and Journalism from The Hague University and Leiden University.

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