Cancer Epidemiology and Prevention Research, Alberta Health Services, Cancer Control Alberta, Calgary, Canada.
CAREX Canada, Simon Fraser University, Vancouver, Canada.
Cyberpsychol Behav Soc Netw. 2021 Aug;24(8):573-577. doi: 10.1089/cyber.2020.0663. Epub 2020 Dec 18.
The novel coronavirus 2019 pandemic has brought about an overabundance of misinformation concerning the virus (SARS-CoV-2) and the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) it causes spreading rapidly on social media. While some more obviously untrustworthy sources may be easier for social media filters to identify and remove, an early feature was the cobranding of COVID-19 misinformation with other types of misinformation. To examine this, the top 10 Instagram posts (in English) were collected every day for 10 days (April 21-30th, 2020) for each of the hashtags #hoax, #governmentlies, and #plandemic. The #hoax was selected first as it is commonly used in conspiracy theory posts, and #governmentlies because it was the most commonly cotagged with #hoax. For comparison, we selected #plandemic as the most popular cotagged hashtag that was clearly COVID-19-related. This resulted in 300 Instagram posts available for our analysis. We conducted a content analysis by coding the themes contained in the posts, both for the images and the text caption shared by the Instagram users (including hashtags). The broad theme of general mistrust was the most common, including the idea that the government and/or media has fabricated or hidden information pertaining to COVID-19. Conspiracy theories were the second-most frequent theme among posts. Overall, COVID-19 was frequently presented in association with authority-questioning beliefs. Developing an understanding of how the public shares misinformation on COVID-19 alongside conspiracy theories and authority-questioning statements can aid public health officials and policymakers in limiting the spread of potentially life-threatening health misinformation.
2019 年新型冠状病毒肺炎大流行导致大量有关该病毒(SARS-CoV-2)和其引起的 2019 年冠状病毒病(COVID-19)的错误信息在社交媒体上迅速传播。虽然一些更明显不可信的来源可能更容易被社交媒体过滤器识别和删除,但早期的一个特征是 COVID-19 错误信息与其他类型的错误信息交织在一起。为了研究这一现象,我们每天收集了 10 天(2020 年 4 月 21 日至 30 日)的每个标签 #hoax、#governmentlies 和 #plandemic 的前 10 名 Instagram 帖子(英文)。选择 #hoax 是因为它通常用于阴谋论帖子,而选择 #governmentlies 是因为它与 #hoax 最常被共同标记。作为对比,我们选择了 #plandemic,因为它是最受欢迎的与 COVID-19 相关的共同标记标签。这导致我们有 300 个 Instagram 帖子可供分析。我们对帖子中包含的主题进行了内容分析,包括 Instagram 用户分享的图像和文字标题(包括标签)。最常见的主题是普遍的不信任,包括政府和/或媒体编造或隐瞒与 COVID-19 相关信息的想法。阴谋论是帖子中第二常见的主题。总体而言,COVID-19 经常与质疑权威的信念联系在一起。了解公众如何与阴谋论和质疑权威的言论一起分享有关 COVID-19 的错误信息,可以帮助公共卫生官员和政策制定者限制可能危及生命的健康错误信息的传播。