6533b828fe1ef96bd12890db
RESEARCH PRODUCT
An exploratory study of COVID-19 misinformation on Twitter.
Anne DirksonGautam Kishore ShahiTim A. Majchrzaksubject
FOS: Computer and information sciencesCoronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19)Computer Networks and CommunicationsDiffusion of informationInternet privacyTwitterExploratory research02 engineering and technologyCrisis managementFalse accusationArticleSocial mediaComputer Science - Computers and SocietyOrder (exchange)Computers and Society (cs.CY)0202 electrical engineering electronic engineering information engineeringSocial mediaMisinformationSocial and Information Networks (cs.SI)business.industryCommunicationCOVID-19Computer Science - Social and Information Networks020206 networking & telecommunicationsExploratory analysisVDP::Samfunnsvitenskap: 200::Sosiologi: 220CoronavirusInformatikFake newsMisinformation020201 artificial intelligence & image processingPsychologybusinessInformation Systemsdescription
During the COVID-19 pandemic, social media has become a home ground for misinformation. To tackle this infodemic, scientific oversight, as well as a better understanding by practitioners in crisis management, is needed. We have conducted an exploratory study into the propagation, authors and content of misinformation on Twitter around the topic of COVID-19 in order to gain early insights. We have collected all tweets mentioned in the verdicts of fact-checked claims related to COVID-19 by over 92 professional fact-checking organisations between January and mid-July 2020 and share this corpus with the community. This resulted in 1 500 tweets relating to 1 274 false and 276 partially false claims, respectively. Exploratory analysis of author accounts revealed that the verified twitter handle(including Organisation/celebrity) are also involved in either creating (new tweets) or spreading (retweet) the misinformation. Additionally, we found that false claims propagate faster than partially false claims. Compare to a background corpus of COVID-19 tweets, tweets with misinformation are more often concerned with discrediting other information on social media. Authors use less tentative language and appear to be more driven by concerns of potential harm to others. Our results enable us to suggest gaps in the current scientific coverage of the topic as well as propose actions for authorities and social media users to counter misinformation.
| year | journal | country | edition | language |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2020-05-12 | Online social networks and media |