Public Discourse Against Masks in the COVID-19 Era: Infodemiology Study of Twitter Data

Abstract

Background Despite scientific evidence supporting the importance of wearing masks to curtail the spread of COVID-19, wearing masks has stirred up a significant debate particularly on social media. Objective This study aimed to investigate the topics associated with the public discourse against wearing masks in the United States. We also studied the relationship between the anti-mask discourse on social media and the number of new COVID-19 cases. Methods We collected a total of 51,170 English tweets between January 1, 2020, and October 27, 2020, by searching for hashtags against wearing masks. We used machine learning techniques to analyze the data collected. We investigated the relationship between the volume of tweets against mask-wearing and the daily volume of new COVID-19 cases using a Pearson correlation analysis between the two-time series. Results The results and analysis showed that social media could help identify important insights related to wearing masks. The results of topic mining identified 10 categories or themes of user concerns dominated by (1) constitutional rights and freedom of choice; (2) conspiracy theory, population control, and big pharma; and (3) fake news, fake numbers, and fake pandemic. Altogether, these three categories represent almost 65% of the volume of tweets against wearing masks. The relationship between the volume of tweets against wearing masks and newly reported COVID-19 cases depicted a strong correlation wherein the rise in the volume of negative tweets led the rise in the number of new cases by 9 days. Conclusions These findings demonstrated the potential of mining social media for understanding the public discourse about public health issues such as wearing masks during the COVID-19 pandemic. The results emphasized the relationship between the discourse on social media and the potential impact on real events such as changing the course of the pandemic. Policy makers are advised to proactively address public perception and work on shaping this perception through raising awareness, debunking negative sentiments, and prioritizing early policy intervention toward the most prevalent topics.

COVID-19 Pandemic: Effect of Different Face Masks on Self-Perceived Dry Mouth and Halitosis

“…The identification of potential subjective or objective side effects of protective measures is highly relevant, i.e., to understand the adherence to protective measures (here: face masks) during the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic. For example, potential health-related sideeffects of wearing face masks are within the top five topics associated with the public discourse against wearing face masks during the pandemic [12].…”

Online information on face masks: analysis of websites in Italian and English returned by different search engines

“…In fact, a recent study analysing over 50 000 tweets against wearing masks in English reported that, on Twitter, conspiracy theories are present in one of four tweets. 37 Another aspect that this research highlighted is the type of issues of face masks that are discussed in websites. Some issues raised frequently are not scientifically based, such as the accumulation of CO 2 and hypercapnia, hypoxia and the increased risk of infection due, for instance, to reinhaling the virus or suppressing the immune system.…”

Infodemiological Study on the Use of Face Masks during Covid-19: Comparing U.S. and Korea

“…Twitter, a microblogging site, is also known to effectively show networking trends in the public's conversations and information-sharing behavior, especially during pandemics (Park et al, 2020). A recent study found that the number of tweets against mask-wearing is correlated to the number of new COVID--19 cases (Al-Ramahi et al, 2021). This implies that monitoring Twitter conversations and debates is useful in investigating public concern, key issues, and barriers related to wearing face masks, which can ultimately help manage the spread of COVID-19.…”