During humanitarian crises, a large amount of information is circulated in a short period of time, either to withstand or respond to such crises. Such crises also give rise to misinformation that spreads within and outside the affected community. Such misinformation may result in information harms that can generate serious short term or long-term consequences. In the context of humanitarian crises, we propose a synthesis of misinformation harms and assess people’s perception of harm based on their work experience in the crisis response arena or their direct exposure to crises.
People all over the world were under severe stress and were concerned about their health after a devastating pandemic struck the world in the form of a novel coronavirus disease (COVID-19) in late December 2019. Many nations imposed strict lockdowns and quarantines, causing citizens to maintain social isolation, throwing many companies to a halt. Thousands of people took to Twitter during these challenging circumstances to express their feelings about being caught in the middle of a storm. Twitter witnessed an outpouring of emotions ranging from fear, anger, and sadness associated with the spread of a novel virus that has no known cure, to voices of support and trust for nations’ official response to the pandemic. In studying the emotional response (anger, fear, and sadness) on Twitter about the COVID-19 crisis, we thus see a tale of two crises unfold—choosing health or economy. We capture collective emotions on social media and investigate the patterns and impact of these negative emotions during various stages of the disease outbreak. It also provides crucial insights to health officials and government agencies on communicating crisis information to the public via social media.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.