The COVID-19 Infodemic: A Quantitative Analysis Through Facebook

Abstract

Background Social media is a crucial part of our daily life. Facebook, being the biggest social media platform, plays a significant role in the spread of information influencing the global response to the COVID-19 pandemic. Health care agencies like the World Health Organization (WHO) and Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) use social media as a platform to impart information regarding COVID-19; simultaneously, there is a spread of misinformation on social media, masking the credible sources of information. Our research aims to assess the utility of Facebook in providing misinformation and testing its "fact-check policy." Methods An online search was conducted on Facebook by a newly created account to eliminate bias. The Facebook search bar was used to investigate multiple keywords. Data were tabulated in Microsoft Excel (Microsoft Corporation, Redmond, WA). Descriptive statistical analysis of Facebook accounts and posts was done using the Statistical Package for the Social Sciences (SPSS) version 26 (IBM Corp., Armonk, NY) while statistical importance was set a priority at a p-value of 0.05. Results Our study consisted of 454 Facebook posts. Most (22.5%) were posted by verified accounts and 23.9% by informal individual/group accounts. The tone for most (40.4%) COVID-19 information was serious while the most common (43.9%) topic was medical/public health. In total, 22.3% included misinformation, 19.6% were unverifiable, and 27.5% included correct information verifiable by the WHO or CDC. Conclusions Misinformation/unverifiable information related to the COVID-19 crisis is spreading at a distressing rate on social media. We quantified the misinformation and tested Facebook's "fact-check policy." We advise strict initiatives to control this infodemic and advise future researches to evaluate the accuracy of content being circulated on other social media platforms.

The causes, impacts and countermeasures of COVID-19 “Infodemic”: A systematic review using narrative synthesis

“…Over 37% of the most viewed YouTube videos with the Korean term "Coronavirus" and its variations were found to contain misleading information ( Andreu-Sánchez and Martín-Pascual, 2020 ). High percentages of misinformation were also found when the search was conducted in English or on other platforms (e.g., Facebook and Twitter) ( Li et al., 2020 ; Ahmed et al., 2020 ; Ahmed et al., 2020 ). Similar findings were also reported by a considerable amount of studies ( Ahmed et al., 2020 ; Pulido et al., 2020 ; Moon and Lee, 2020 ; Bârgăoanu and Durach, 2020 ; Khatri et al., 2020 ; Ataç et al., 2020 ; D'Souza et al., 2020 ; Dutta et al., 2020 ; Kocyigit et al., 2020 ; Yüce et al., 2020 ; Yuksel and Cakmak, 2020 ; Kawchuk et al., 2020 ; Raja and Shaheed, 2020 ; Almomani and Al-Qur'an, 2020 ; Cuan-Baltazar et al., 2020 ; Szmuda et al., 2020 ; Moscadelli et al., 2020 ; Obiała et al., 2021 ; Mackey et al., 2020 ; Safarnejad et al., 2020 ; Tagliabue et al., 2020 ).…”

Faster than warp speed: early attention to COVD-19 by anti-vaccine groups on Facebook

“…Facebook and other social media platforms have the capacity to disseminate accurate information, create influential public health messages and facilitate the rollout of vaccines. 30–32 The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and state departments of health are using Facebook for public health messaging in social networks, albeit with varying levels of success. A study of over 2500 CDC and health department Facebook posts found 7% concerned vaccines and immunization, and most states with lower childhood and influenza vaccination coverage are not utilizing Facebook to promote immunization.…”

The rapid, massive growth of COVID-19 authors in the scientific literature

“…Flashy news, media, and editorializing in both academic journals and the popular press may be prominent during the pandemic. [21][22][23][24] It is unknown whether non-peer-reviewed news stories and in-house editorials in major journals help safeguard against the "infodemic" or sometimes contribute to make things worse. Excluding journalists and editors of prestigious journals, the key countries of the authors with the highest composite citation indicator tended to be similar to the countries of the most prolific authors.…”