An exploratory study of COVID-19 misinformation on Twitter

114

As of March 2021, the SARS-CoV-2 virus has been responsible for over 115 million cases of COVID-19 worldwide, resulting in over 2.5 million deaths. As the virus spread exponentially, so did its media coverage, resulting in a proliferation of conflicting information on social media platforms—a so-called “infodemic.” In this viewpoint, we survey past literature investigating the role of automated accounts, or “bots,” in spreading such misinformation, drawing connections to the COVID-19 pandemic. We also review strategies used by bots to spread (mis)information and examine the potential origins of bots. We conclude by conducting and presenting a secondary analysis of data sets of known bots in which we find that up to 66% of bots are discussing COVID-19. The proliferation of COVID-19 (mis)information by bots, coupled with human susceptibility to believing and sharing misinformation, may well impact the course of the pandemic.

Section: How Do Bots Amplify and Spread Misinformation?mentioning

confidence: 99%

“…A similar study demonstrated that fully false claims about the virus propagated more rapidly and were more frequently liked than partially false claims. Tweets containing false claims also had less tentative language than valid claims [ 8 ].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Bots and Misinformation Spread on Social Media: Implications for COVID-19

Himelein-Wachowiak¹,

Giorgi²,

Devoto³

et al. 2021

114

“…Although this may have positive effects on public health attitudes related to mitigation measures, one should also be aware of the detrimental effects of misinformation in media [16][17][18][19][20]. Misinformation should be of special consideration in the context of social media platforms such as Twitter, since false claims regarding COVID-19 appear to propagate faster on such platforms, as demonstrated in a recent study by Shahi et al [21]. However, even before the COVID-19 "infodemic," the spread of misinformation on social media platforms, on e-commerce platforms (eg, Amazon [22]), and by prominent celebrities in the United States has led to the emergence of an antivaccine movement, which has detrimental effects on national vaccine programs [23].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

People’s Willingness to Vaccinate Against COVID-19 Despite Their Safety Concerns: Twitter Poll Analysis

Eibensteiner¹,

Ritschl²,

Nawaz³

et al. 2021

Background On January 30, 2020, the World Health Organization’s Emergency Committee declared the rapid, worldwide spread of COVID-19 a global health emergency. Since then, tireless efforts have been made to mitigate the spread of the disease and its impact, and these efforts have mostly relied on nonpharmaceutical interventions. By December 2020, the safety and efficacy of the first COVID-19 vaccines were demonstrated. The large social media platform Twitter has been used by medical researchers for the analysis of important public health topics, such as the public’s perception on antibiotic use and misuse and human papillomavirus vaccination. The analysis of Twitter-generated data can be further facilitated by using Twitter’s built-in, anonymous polling tool to gain insight into public health issues and obtain rapid feedback on an international scale. During the fast-paced course of the COVID-19 pandemic, the Twitter polling system has provided a viable method for gaining rapid, large-scale, international public health insights on highly relevant and timely SARS-CoV-2–related topics. Objective The purpose of this study was to understand the public’s perception on the safety and acceptance of COVID-19 vaccines in real time by using Twitter polls. Methods We developed 2 Twitter polls to explore the public’s views on available COVID-19 vaccines. The surveys were pinned to the Digital Health and Patient Safety Platform Twitter timeline for 1 week in mid-February 2021, and Twitter users and influencers were asked to participate in and retweet the polls to reach the largest possible audience. Results The adequacy of COVID-19 vaccine safety (ie, the safety of currently available vaccines; poll 1) was agreed upon by 1579 out of 3439 (45.9%) Twitter users. In contrast, almost as many Twitter users (1434/3439, 41.7%) were unsure about the safety of COVID-19 vaccines. Only 5.2% (179/3439) of Twitter users rated the available COVID-19 vaccines as generally unsafe. Poll 2, which addressed the question of whether users would undergo vaccination, was answered affirmatively by 82.8% (2862/3457) of Twitter users, and only 8% (277/3457) categorically rejected vaccination at the time of polling. Conclusions In contrast to the perceived high level of uncertainty about the safety of the available COVID-19 vaccines, we observed an elevated willingness to undergo vaccination among our study sample. Since people's perceptions and views are strongly influenced by social media, the snapshots provided by these media platforms represent a static image of a moving target. Thus, the results of this study need to be followed up by long-term surveys to maintain their validity. This is especially relevant due to the circumstances of the fast-paced pandemic and the need to not miss sudden rises in the incidence of vaccine hesitancy, which may have detrimental effects on the pandemic’s course.

“…Analysis of 1500 tweets relating to 1274 false and 276 partially false claims revealed that verified Twitter handles, including organizations and celebrities, were also involved in either creating or spreading the misinformation via new tweets or retweets, respectively. They also noted that false claims propagated faster than partially false claims (χ 2 3 =10.2; P <.001; N=1500) [ 49 ]. Controversial posts were taken down only after large-scale objections [ 2 , 50 ].…”

Section: Pitfalls: Ethical and Legal Concernsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Use of Twitter in Neurology: Boon or Bane?

Mishra¹,

Saini²,

Doherty³

et al. 2021

Twitter is a free, open access social media platform that is widely used in medicine by physicians, scientists, and patients. It provides an opportunity for advocacy, education, and collaboration. However, it is likely not utilized to its full advantage by many disciplines in medicine, and pitfalls exist in its use. In particular, there has not been a review of Twitter use and its applications in the field of neurology. This review seeks to provide an understanding of the current use of Twitter in the field of neurology to assist neurologists in engaging with this potentially powerful application to support their work.