Gruzd Anatoliy, Mai Philip, Soares Felipe Bonow
Ted Rogers School of Management, Social Media Lab, Toronto Metropolitan University, Toronto, Canada.
Soc Netw Anal Min. 2022;12(1):118. doi: 10.1007/s13278-022-00948-y. Epub 2022 Aug 20.
This study examines the presence and role of Coordinated Link Sharing Behavior (CLSB) on Facebook around the "America's Frontline Doctors" press conference, and the promotion of several unproven conspiracy theories including the false assertion that hydroxychloroquine is a "cure" for COVID-19 by Dr. Stella Immanuel, one of the doctors who took part in the press conference. We collected 7,737 public Facebook posts mentioning Stella Immanuel using CrowdTangle and then applied the specialized program CooRnet to detect CLSB among Facebook public pages, groups and verified profiles. Finally, we used a mixed-method approach consisting of both network and content analysis to examine the nature and scope of the detected CLSB. Our analysis shows how Facebook accounts engaged in CLSB to fuel the spread of misinformation. We identified a coalition of Facebook accounts that engaged in CLSB to promote COVID-19 related misinformation. This coalition included US-based pro-Trump, QAnon, and anti-vaccination accounts. In addition, we identified Facebook accounts that engaged in CLSB in other countries, such as Brazil and France, that primarily promoted hydroxychloroquine, and some accounts in African countries that criticized the government's pandemic response in their countries.
本研究考察了在“美国前线医生”新闻发布会前后，脸书上协同链接分享行为（CLSB）的存在情况及其作用，以及包括斯特拉·伊曼纽尔医生提出的几种未经证实的阴谋论的传播情况。伊曼纽尔医生是参加该新闻发布会的医生之一，她错误地宣称羟氯喹是治疗新冠病毒病的“药物”。我们使用CrowdTangle收集了7737条提及斯特拉·伊曼纽尔的脸书公开帖子，然后应用专门程序CooRnet来检测脸书公共页面、群组和认证账号之间的协同链接分享行为。最后，我们采用了一种结合网络分析和内容分析的混合方法，来研究检测到的协同链接分享行为的性质和范围。我们的分析展示了脸书账号如何通过协同链接分享行为来助长错误信息的传播。我们识别出了一个参与协同链接分享行为以推动新冠病毒病相关错误信息传播的脸书账号联盟。这个联盟包括美国境内支持特朗普的账号、匿名者Q组织的账号以及反疫苗接种的账号。此外，我们还识别出了其他国家参与协同链接分享行为的脸书账号，比如巴西和法国的账号，这些账号主要是推广羟氯喹，以及非洲国家一些批评本国政府应对疫情措施的账号。
