“As Reliable as a Kalashnikov Rifle”: How Sputnik News Promotes Russian Vaccine Technologies in the Turkish Twittersphere

Furman, Ivo; Gürel, Kurt Bilgin; Sivaslıoğlu, Fırat Berk

doi:10.1177/20563051221150418

Cited by 4 publications

(2 citation statements)

References 42 publications

(40 reference statements)

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“…6 News accounts active in the status reply network include national opposition newspapers Cumhurriyet and Birgün. Despite being a Russian-affiliated digital news agency, Sputnik's editorial policy for national news tends to be oppositional (see Furman et. al, 2023) and thus can be included onto the list of oppositional media.…”

Section: Table 1 In-degree Distribution Of Status Reply Networkmentioning

confidence: 99%

Cartographier les publics opposés à Diyanet lors de la controverse au sujet du déisme en 2018 sur Twitter turc

Akyıldız

Furman

2023

Galatasaray Üniversitesi İleti-Ş-Im Dergisi

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Deizmin Türkiye’de imam hatip okulu öğrencileri arasında yaygınlaştığına dair tartışmalar sürerken Diyanet İşleri Başkanı Ali Erbaş 12 Nisan 2018 tarihinde deistleri “sapık ve batıl felsefi bir düşüncenin takipçileri” olarak tanımladığı bir açıklama yaptı. Açıklamanın ardından sosyal medya, A. Erbaş'ın beyânatına verilen sert tepkiler ve kısmen de olsa destek açıklamalarıyla dolup taştı. Erbaş'ın açıklamasının tetiklediği bu tartışmayı anlamlandırabilmek amacıyla Twitter’da beyânattan sonraki 48 saatlik süreyi mercek altına almaya karar verdik. Sayısal veri toplama yöntemlerini kullanarak elde ettiğimiz 15.226 farklı Twitter kullanıcısına ait 21.674 tweetten oluşan bir veri seti ile tartışmada gündeme gelen temaları ve alınan pozisyonları analiz ettik. Hem niteliksel içerik analizi, hem de sosyal ağ analizi kullanarak gerçekleştirdiğimiz araştırmamızın bulguları, Twitter’da A. Erbaş’ın tetiklediği deizm tartışması vesilesiyle 3 temel sonucun ortaya çıktığını göstermektedir. Bu sonuçlar şöyleözetlenebilir: a) Twitter “dinden (Sünnî İslâm) dönme hikâyeleri”nin dile getirildiği geçici bir diyalojik alana dönüşmüştür; b) Twitter A. Erbaş’ın ve Diyanet'in politikalarına yönelik eleştirileri yapabilmek bir fırsat penceresi açmıştır; ve c) Twitter kullanıcıları A. Erbaş'ın açıklamalarından sadece A. Erbaş’ı değil hükümet aktörlerini doğrudan sorumlu tutmuştur.

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Section: Table 1 In-degree Distribution Of Status Reply Networkmentioning

confidence: 99%

Cartographier les publics opposés à Diyanet lors de la controverse au sujet du déisme en 2018 sur Twitter turc

Akyıldız

Furman

2023

Galatasaray Üniversitesi İleti-Ş-Im Dergisi

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“…Given both the opposition’s and the government’s strong pro-vaccination stance, it is likely that anti-vaccine sentiment finds its primary voice on social media platforms due to a lack of coverage by the mainstream media. Highlighting this phenomenon, a recent study by Furman et al (2023) evidenced that the pro-Russian media outlet SputnikTR spread misinformation on Twitter about the vaccines developed by the West to increase skepticism toward the Western-sourced vaccines and promote the Russian vaccine.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Mechanisms Driving Online Vaccine Debate During the COVID-19 Pandemic

Seckin,

Atalay,

Otenen

et al. 2024

Social Media + Society

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The prevalence of the anti-vaccine movement in today’s society has become a pressing concern, largely amplified by the dissemination of vaccine skepticism. During the early stages of the COVID-19 pandemic, the vaccination debate sparked controversial debates on social media platforms such as Twitter, which can lead to serious consequences for public health. What determines anti-vax attitudes is an important question for understanding the source of the campaigns and mitigating the misinformation spread. Compared with other countries, Türkiye differentiates itself with high vaccination rates and lack of political support for anti-vaxxers despite its highly polarized political system. Analyzing Turkish Twittersphere, we explore several mechanisms capturing content production and behaviors of accounts within the pro- and anti-vax segments in online vaccine-related discussions. Our findings indicate there is no relation between political stance and anti-vaccine attitude. Both supporters of vaccination (pro-vaxxers) and opponents (anti-vaxxers) can be found across the political spectrum. Moreover, linguistic differences reveal that anti-vaxxers employ more emotional language, while pro-vaxxers express more skepticism. Notably, automated accounts are less prevalent leading to difficulty in assessing genuine support for vaccines, while anti-vaccine bots produce slightly more content. These findings have crucial implications for vaccine policy, emphasizing the importance of understanding diverse language patterns and beliefs among anti-vaxxers and pro-vaxxers to develop effective communication strategies at the national level.

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Detecting coordinated and bot-like behavior in Twitter: the Jürgen Conings case

De Clerck,

Fernandez Toledano,

Van Utterbeeck

et al. 2024

EPJ Data Sci.

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Social media platforms can play a pivotal role in shaping public opinion during times of crisis and controversy. The COVID-19 pandemic resulted in a large amount of dubious information being shared online. In Belgium, a crisis emerged during the pandemic when a soldier (Jürgen Conings) went missing with stolen weaponry after threatening politicians and virologists. This case created further division and polarization in online discussions. In this paper, we develop a methodology to study the potential of coordinated spread of incorrect information online. We combine network science and content analysis to infer and study the social network of users discussing the case, the news websites shared by those users, and their narratives. Additionally, we examined indications of bots or coordinated behavior among the users. Our findings reveal the presence of distinct communities within the discourse. Major news outlets, conspiracy theory websites, and anti-vax platforms were identified as the primary sources of (dis)information sharing. We also detected potential coordinated behavior and bot activity, indicating possible attempts to manipulate the discourse. We used the rapid semantic similarity network for the analysis of text, but our approach can be extended to the analysis of images, videos, and other types of content. These results provide insights into the role of social media in shaping public opinion during times of crisis and underscore the need for improved strategies to detect and mitigate disinformation campaigns and online discourse manipulation. Our research can aid intelligence community members in identifying and disrupting networks that spread extremist ideologies and false information, thereby promoting a more informed and resilient society.

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“As Reliable as a Kalashnikov Rifle”: How Sputnik News Promotes Russian Vaccine Technologies in the Turkish Twittersphere

Cited by 4 publications

References 42 publications

Cartographier les publics opposés à Diyanet lors de la controverse au sujet du déisme en 2018 sur Twitter turc

Cartographier les publics opposés à Diyanet lors de la controverse au sujet du déisme en 2018 sur Twitter turc

Mechanisms Driving Online Vaccine Debate During the COVID-19 Pandemic

Detecting coordinated and bot-like behavior in Twitter: the Jürgen Conings case

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