The conspiracy of Covid-19 and 5G: Spatial analysis fallacies in the age of data democratization

Flaherty, Eoin; Sturm, Tristan; Farries, Elizabeth

doi:10.1016/j.socscimed.2021.114546

Cited by 24 publications

(16 citation statements)

References 63 publications

(68 reference statements)

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“…On one hand, conspiracy belief is unrelated to people’s ability to judge the randomness of binary strings of Os and Xs 50 . On the other hand, studies have found correlational 51 , 52 and experimental 53 relationships between conspiracy beliefs and a bias towards overestimating the likelihood of co-occurring or spatially adjacent events, and drawing causal links between them, such as the co-occurrence of COVID-19 cases with 5G infrastructure (the conjunction fallacy). This suggests that those who believe in conspiracy theories have a tendency to base judgements on subjective perceptions of coincidences rather than objective assessment of probabilities.…”

Section: Individual-level Factorsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Individual, intergroup and nation-level influences on belief in conspiracy theories

et al. 2022

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Conspiracy theories are part of mainstream public life, with the potential to undermine governments, promote racism, ignite extremism and threaten public health efforts. Psychological research on conspiracy theories is booming, with more than half of the academic articles on the topic published since 2019. In this Review, we synthesize the literature with an eye to understanding the psychological factors that shape willingness to believe conspiracy theories. We begin at the individual level, examining the cognitive, clinical, motivational, personality and developmental factors that predispose people to believe conspiracy theories. Drawing on insights from social and evolutionary psychology, we then review research examining conspiracy theories as an intergroup phenomenon that reflects and reinforces societal fault lines. Finally, we examine how conspiracy theories are shaped by the economic, political, cultural and socio-historical contexts at the national level. This multilevel approach offers a deep and broad insight into conspiracist thinking that increases understanding of the problem and offers potential solutions.

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Section: Individual-level Factorsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Individual, intergroup and nation-level influences on belief in conspiracy theories

et al. 2022

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“…This study aims to further bridge the gap between computational and qualitative methodologies by demonstrating how NLP and manual annotation can be used synergistically to emphasize the positive aspects of each approach while minimizing their respective drawbacks. In order to assess the utility of this methodology, themes generated by this approach will be compared for consistency with 5G-COVID conspiracy themes previously identified on Twitter [26][27][28], Facebook [29], and Instagram [30]. Further, this study will extend the current literature by providing in-depth characterization of discourse focusing on correcting false information, which can be used to inform counterstrategies for online misinformation propagation.…”

Section: The Emergence Of Infodemiology In the Early Internet Eramentioning

confidence: 99%

“…This is consistent with findings from another 5G conspiracy study conducted on Twitter, which shows that the conspiracies were built on existing ideas set against wireless technologies [ 28 ]. On Twitter more specifically, researchers found that videos played a more crucial role in 5G rumor propagation than posts [ 28 ], and other work has examined how spatial data has been misconstrued by conspiracists, as shown with the promotion of maps that assert false correlations between the distribution of COVID-19 cases and installations of 5G towers [ 27 ].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Detecting nuance in conspiracy discourse: Advancing methods in infodemiology and communication science with machine learning and qualitative content coding

Haupt,

Chiu,

Chang

et al. 2023

PLoS ONE

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The spread of misinformation and conspiracies has been an ongoing issue since the early stages of the internet era, resulting in the emergence of the field of infodemiology (i.e., information epidemiology), which investigates the transmission of health-related information. Due to the high volume of online misinformation in recent years, there is a need to continue advancing methodologies in order to effectively identify narratives and themes. While machine learning models can be used to detect misinformation and conspiracies, these models are limited in their generalizability to other datasets and misinformation phenomenon, and are often unable to detect implicit meanings in text that require contextual knowledge. To rapidly detect evolving conspiracist narratives within high volume online discourse while identifying nuanced themes requiring the comprehension of subtext, this study describes a hybrid methodology that combines natural language processing (i.e., topic modeling and sentiment analysis) with qualitative content coding approaches to characterize conspiracy discourse related to 5G wireless technology and COVID-19 on Twitter (currently known as ‘X’). Discourse that focused on correcting 5G conspiracies was also analyzed for comparison. Sentiment analysis shows that conspiracy-related discourse was more likely to use language that was analytic, combative, past-oriented, referenced social status, and expressed negative emotions. Corrections discourse was more likely to use words reflecting cognitive processes, prosocial relations, health-related consequences, and future-oriented language. Inductive coding characterized conspiracist narratives related to global elites, anti-vax sentiment, medical authorities, religious figures, and false correlations between technology advancements and disease outbreaks. Further, the corrections discourse did not address many of the narratives prevalent in conspiracy conversations. This paper aims to further bridge the gap between computational and qualitative methodologies by demonstrating how both approaches can be used in tandem to emphasize the positive aspects of each methodology while minimizing their respective drawbacks.

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“…Multiple arsons at cellular telephone towers in the United Kingdom were connected to misinformation connecting 5G mobile technology to COVID-19 (BBC News, 2020). Flaherty and colleagues (2022) found that misinformation linking 5G and COVID-19 was distributed and received attention on alt-right social media sites. In the United States, an engineer employed at the Port of Los Angeles, Eduardo Moreno, caused a train to crash because he was suspicious of the U.S. Navy hospital ship that had docked there and “believe[d] it had an alternate purpose related to COVID-19 or a government takeover” (Zaveri, 2020).…”

Section: The Missing Affect: Misinformation and Disinformationmentioning

confidence: 99%

How COVID-19 is reshaping U.S. national security policy

Kosal

2023

Polit. life sci.

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In the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, the United States is actively reshaping parts of its national security enterprise. This article explores the underlying politics, with a specific interest in the context of biosecurity, biodefense, and bioterrorism strategy, programs, and response, as the United States responds to the most significant outbreak of an emerging infectious disease in over a century. How the implicit or tacit failure to recognize the political will and political decision-making connected to warfare and conflict for biological weapons programs in these trends is explored. Securitization of public health has been a focus of the literature over the past half century. This recent trend may represent something of an inverse: an attempt to treat national security interests as public health problems. A hypothesis is that the most significant underrecognized problem associated with COVID-19 is disinformation and the weakening of confidence in institutions, including governments, and how adversaries may exploit that blind spot.

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The conspiracy of Covid-19 and 5G: Spatial analysis fallacies in the age of data democratization

Cited by 24 publications

References 63 publications

Individual, intergroup and nation-level influences on belief in conspiracy theories

Individual, intergroup and nation-level influences on belief in conspiracy theories

Detecting nuance in conspiracy discourse: Advancing methods in infodemiology and communication science with machine learning and qualitative content coding

How COVID-19 is reshaping U.S. national security policy

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