The different forms of COVID-19 misinformation and their consequences

Abstract

As the COVID-19 pandemic progresses, an understanding of the structure and organization of beliefs in pandemic conspiracy theories and misinformation becomes increasingly critical for addressing the threat posed by these dubious ideas. In polling Americans about beliefs in 11 such ideas, we observed clear groupings of beliefs that correspond with different individual-level characteristics (e.g., support for Trump, distrust of scientists) and behavioral intentions (e.g., to take a vaccine, to engage in social activities). Moreover, we found that conspiracy theories enjoy more support, on average, than misinformation about dangerous health practices. Our findings suggest several paths for policymakers, communicators, and scientists to minimize the spread and impact of COVID-19 misinformation and conspiracy theories.

The Role of Conspiracy Theories in the Spread of COVID-19 across the United States

“…Consequently, these conspiracy theorists could even contribute more mobility than they usually did. However, the other conspiracy theorists might be afraid of the undesirable outcomes of COVID-19, as the virus is rumored to be an effective biological weapon to control the population [ 1 , 2 , 3 ]. For the non-believers, searching the stories on the Internet is purely out of their curiosity, and they would still follow official instructions to enforce social distancing and home schooling.…”

“…Our research pioneers to empirically investigate the relation of online attention to COVID-19-related misinformation, in this case, COVID-19 conspiracy theories, to the aggregate human mobility and the number of reported COVID-19 cases in the United States. Although the types, sources and undesirable consequences of the COVID-19-related misinformation have been portrayed [ 1 , 2 , 29 ], how is such misinformation related to the number of the reported COVID-19 cases still remains unexplored before this work. Without an in-depth understanding of the potential functional route of COVID-19 misinformation on the spread of the pandemic, administrators may not be able to propose or implement any effective measures to minimize the negative outcomes of the rumors on the Internet, though they have already taken actions against such misinformation [ 6 , 7 ].…”

“…From the literature that examines COVID-19 conspiracy theories [ 1 , 2 , 3 , 29 ] and online contents such as Tweets, blogs, columns and posts, we initially include over 40 widely spread COVID-19 conspiracy theories, see Table A1 in the Appendix A . Afterwards, we try different combinations of keywords that denote these conspiracy theories on Google Trends, and compare these keywords with the hottest topics on Google in the United States.…”

“…During an epidemic, misinformation proliferates as fear grows, posing further damage to public health. Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) is also a global misinformation pandemic; conspiracy theories in various forms, such as fifth-generation (5G) technology causes COVID-19 and the Deep State masterminded the pandemic, are spreading along with the virus [ 1 , 2 , 3 ]. A number of people firmly believe one influential conspiracy theory: COVID-19 does not indeed exist, and the pandemic is a plot by global elites to rule the world [ 3 ].…”

“…Notably, we only consider the online attention series due to the following three reasons. First, the Internet plays a noticeably important role in the spread of the COVID-19 conspiracy theories during the pandemic [ 1 , 2 ], although other channels such as phone calls and television shows are still conveying misinformation. Second, selective exposure is the primary driver of online misinformation transmission [ 20 ]; this feature is compatible with the role of self-selection and predispositions in the belief of conspiracy theories [ 8 , 9 ].…”