COVID-19-Related Social Media Fake News in India

Al-Zaman, Md. Sayeed

doi:10.3390/journalmedia2010007

Cited by 72 publications

(56 citation statements)

References 47 publications

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“…All are non-profit Bangla fact-checking websites, run and contributed by Bangladeshi media researchers and professionals. Their rigorous misinformation debunking methods make their data useful for research purposes ( Al-Zaman, 2021c ; Al-Zaman et al., 2020 ). Also, collecting data from fact-checking websites for research purposes has become popular nowadays ( Avaaz, 2019 ; Brennen et al., 2020 ; Kanozia et al., 2021 ).…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Social media and COVID-19 misinformation: how ignorant Facebook users are?

Al-Zaman¹

2021

Heliyon

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The COVID-19 pandemic has claimed a lot of lives around the world, not only with the virus but also with misinformation. Many researchers have investigated COVID-19 misinformation, but none of them was related to social media users' diverse responses to different types of COVID-19 misinformation, which could be a timely exploration. To bridge this gap in scholarly literature, the present study based on 11,716 comments from 876 Facebook posts on five COVID-19 misinformation seeks to answer two relevant research questions: (a) How ignorant social media users are about misinformation? (b) How do they react to different types of misinformation? Following a quantitative content analysis method, this study produces a few novel findings. The results show that most of the users trust misinformation (60.88%), and fewer can deny (16.15%) or doubt (13.30%) the claims based on proper reasons. The acceptance of religious misinformation (94.72%) surpassed other types of misinformation. Most of the users react happily (34.50%) to misinformation: the users who accept misinformation are mostly happy (55.02%) because it may satisfy their expectations, and the users who distrust misinformation are mostly angry (44.05%) presuming it may cause harm to people. The chi-square and phi coefficient values show strong positive and significant associations between the themes, levels of ignorance, and reactions to misinformation. Some strengths, limitations, and ethical concerns of this study have also been discussed.

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Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Social media and COVID-19 misinformation: how ignorant Facebook users are?

Al-Zaman¹

2021

Heliyon

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“…Twitter is in the third position on the list with 8.22% (n = 674) misinformation. Previous studies also explored that these three social media platforms are more responsible for COVID-19 misinformation propagation (1,4,10,22). Approximately 831 (10.13%) pieces of social media misinformation and 157 (49.37%) pieces of mainstream media misinformation had no specific platform mentioned.…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Meanwhile, COVID-19 misinformation had claimed many lives around the world (1,32). In countries like India and Bangladesh, religious and political COVID-19 misinformation is propelling interreligious discontents and encouraging superstitions and unscientific health practices (4,(33)(34)(35). Therefore, proper measures should be sanctioned to control the prevalence of misinformation to reduce health hazards.…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…This study endeavored to understand the prevalence and source of COVID-19 misinformation around the world. From 2020 until now, a search in scholarly databases (e.g., Scopus and Web of Science) shows that more than 500 research investigated COVID-19 misinformation from different disciplines, such as communication, psychology, politics, and medical sciences (1)(2)(3)(4)(5)(6)(7)(8)(9). Apart from disciplinary and thematic analysis, many of such studies investigated the sources of misinformation and misinformation scenarios in different countries as well (4,(9)(10)(11).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…From 2020 until now, a search in scholarly databases (e.g., Scopus and Web of Science) shows that more than 500 research investigated COVID-19 misinformation from different disciplines, such as communication, psychology, politics, and medical sciences (1)(2)(3)(4)(5)(6)(7)(8)(9). Apart from disciplinary and thematic analysis, many of such studies investigated the sources of misinformation and misinformation scenarios in different countries as well (4,(9)(10)(11). However, these studies are limited in one or more of the following ways: (a) they selected either only one or a very few countries for their analysis of misinformation; (b) their sample of misinformation cases were smaller compared to its higher prevalence; (c) insights on misinformation in different countries according to different sources were unavailable; (b) comparative source analysis of misinformation was limited.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Prevalence and source analysis of COVID-19 misinformation of 138 countries

Al-Zaman

2021

Preprint

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This study analyzed 9,657 pieces of misinformation that originated in 138 countries and fact-checked by 94 organizations. Collected from Poynter Institute's official website and following a quantitative content analysis method along with descriptive statistical analysis, this research produces some novel insights regarding COVID-19 misinformation. The findings show that India (15.94%), the US (9.74%), Brazil (8.57%), and Spain (8.03%) are the four most misinformation-affected countries. Based on the results, it is presumed that the prevalence of COVID-19 misinformation can have a positive association with the COVID-19 situation. Social media (84.94%) produces the highest amount of misinformation, and the internet (90.5%) as a whole is responsible for most of the COVID-19 misinformation. Moreover, Facebook alone produces 66.87% misinformation among all social media platforms. Of all countries, India (18.07%) produced the highest amount of social media misinformation, perhaps thanks to the country's higher internet penetration rate, increasing social media consumption, and users' lack of internet literacy. On the other hand, countries like Turkey, the US, Brazil, and the Philippines where either political control over media is intense or political conservatism is apparent, experienced a higher amount of misinformation from mainstream media, political figures, and celebrities. Although the prevalence of misinformation was the highest in March 2020, given the present trends, it may likely to increase slightly in 2021.

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Inoculation against conspiracy theories: A consumer side approach to India's fake news problem

Iyengar

Gupta

Priya

2022

Applied Cognitive Psychology

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We attempt to replicate Roozenbeek and van der Linden's Western‐based study in India by employing the Bad News Game, an online game, in which players take on the role of a misinformation tycoon. They are exposed to weakened doses of the strategies employed in conspiracy and fake news production with the aim to cognitively inoculate them against misinformation. The proliferation of inexpensive mobile connections coupled with a lack of digital literacy has resulted in a conspiratorial pandemic in developing countries like India. We test the game's impact on an Indian sample (n = 1002) using a within‐subject design. We provide evidence of significant improvement in the ability of participants to identify the misinformation produced using Conspiracy, Impersonation, and to a lesser extent, the Discrediting technique, while observing greater truth discernment in correctly identifying true news. We also conduct sub‐sample analyses. These findings have positive implications for methods that protect users from malignant online content.

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COVID-19-Related Social Media Fake News in India

Cited by 72 publications

References 47 publications

Social media and COVID-19 misinformation: how ignorant Facebook users are?

Social media and COVID-19 misinformation: how ignorant Facebook users are?

Prevalence and source analysis of COVID-19 misinformation of 138 countries

Inoculation against conspiracy theories: A consumer side approach to India's fake news problem

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