This paper is in the following e-collection/theme issue:

Viewpoints and Perspectives (521) JMIR Theme Issue: COVID-19 Special Issue (2457) Medicine 2.0: Social Media, Open, Participatory, Collaborative Medicine (1656) Infodemiology and Infoveillance (1360) Infoveillance, Infodemiology, Digital Disease Surveillance, Infodemic Management (1048) Outbreak and Pandemic Preparedness and Management (1737) Mass Media/Social Media Communication and Campaigns (466) Information Quality in Digital Media (344) Quality/Credibility of eHealth Information and Trust Issues (542) Infoveillance and Social Listening (211)

Published on in Vol 23, No 5 (2021): May

Preprints (earlier versions) of this paper are available at https://preprints.jmir.org/preprint/26933, first published .
Bots and Misinformation Spread on Social Media: Implications for COVID-19

Bots and Misinformation Spread on Social Media: Implications for COVID-19

Bots and Misinformation Spread on Social Media: Implications for COVID-19

Authors of this article:

McKenzie Himelein-Wachowiak1 Author Orcid Image ;   Salvatore Giorgi1, 2 Author Orcid Image ;   Amanda Devoto1 Author Orcid Image ;   Muhammad Rahman1 Author Orcid Image ;   Lyle Ungar2 Author Orcid Image ;   H Andrew Schwartz3 Author Orcid Image ;   David H Epstein1 Author Orcid Image ;   Lorenzo Leggio1 Author Orcid Image ;   Brenda Curtis1 Author Orcid Image
Article Authors Cited by (113) Tweetations (33) Metrics

Journals

  1. Kolokythas A. What do the aftermath of the 2010 Haiti earthquake, Hurricane Sandy, the Boston Marathon bombing, the 2013 Ebola outbreak, and the COVID-19 pandemic have in common?. Oral Surgery, Oral Medicine, Oral Pathology and Oral Radiology 2021;132(4):371 View
  2. Rodrigues D. Regulatory focus and perceived safety with casual partners: implications for perceived risk and casual sex intentions during the COVID-19 pandemic. Psychology & Sexuality 2022;13(5):1303 View
  3. Yousuf M. Mediating the Truth: Influences of Routines on Legacy News Media Fact-Checking. Journalism Practice 2023:1 View
  4. Canary H, Wellman N, Martinez L. COVID-19, Genetics, and Risk: Content Analysis of Facebook Posts Early in the Coronavirus Pandemic. Health Communication 2023;38(8):1654 View
  5. Weng Z, Lin A. Public Opinion Manipulation on Social Media: Social Network Analysis of Twitter Bots during the COVID-19 Pandemic. International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health 2022;19(24):16376 View
  6. Turner J, Kantardzic M, Vickers-Smith R. Infodemiological Examination of Personal and Commercial Tweets About Cannabidiol: Term and Sentiment Analysis. Journal of Medical Internet Research 2021;23(12):e27307 View
  7. Desai A, Ruidera D, Steinbrink J, Granwehr B, Lee D. Misinformation and Disinformation: The Potential Disadvantages of Social Media in Infectious Disease and How to Combat Them. Clinical Infectious Diseases 2022;74(Supplement_3):e34 View
  8. Jahanbakhsh F, Zhang A, Karahalios K, Karger D. Our Browser Extension Lets Readers Change the Headlines on News Articles, and You Won't Believe What They Did!. Proceedings of the ACM on Human-Computer Interaction 2022;6(CSCW2):1 View
  9. Mouronte-López M, Subirán M. What Do Twitter Users Think about Climate Change? Characterization of Twitter Interactions Considering Geographical, Gender, and Account Typologies Perspectives. Weather, Climate, and Society 2022;14(4):1039 View
  10. Sharman J. Recognising and addressing health misinformation in nursing practice. Primary Health Care 2023;33(4):24 View
  11. Lin A, Granata F, Trippel A, Tello L, Stump T, Wong M, Carnethon M, Kershaw K, Makelarski J, Weller D. Food Handling Concerns and Practices at Home during the COVID-19 Pandemic by Food Security Status. Journal of Food Protection 2022;85(3):518 View
  12. Diaz-Garcia J, Ruiz M, Martin-Bautista M. A survey on the use of association rules mining techniques in textual social media. Artificial Intelligence Review 2023;56(2):1175 View
  13. Jordan A, Izar R, Nicolas R, Beharie N, Harocopos A. Understanding Vaccine Perceptions and Willingness to Receive COVID-19 Vaccination: Opportunities to Strengthen Public Health Responses and COVID-19 Services for People Who Use Drugs. Vaccines 2022;10(12):2044 View
  14. Sun W. Introduction to the Special Issue: “Media and Communication during the COVID-19 (Coronavirus) Pandemic”. Howard Journal of Communications 2021;32(5):415 View
  15. Thurson K, Gagnon R, Garst B, Sharaievska I. Vaccine hesitancy, parental concerns, and COVID-19 in a digital leisure context: Implications for out-of-school time. Journal of Leisure Research 2023;54(2):286 View
  16. Guzmán Rincón A, Carrillo Barbosa R, Segovia-García N, Africano Franco D. Disinformation in Social Networks and Bots: Simulated Scenarios of Its Spread from System Dynamics. Systems 2022;10(2):34 View
  17. Kumble S, Diddi P, Bien-Aimé S. ‘Your Strength Is Inspirational’: How Naomi Osaka’s Twitter Announcement Destigmatizes Mental Health Disclosures. Communication & Sport 2024;12(5):792 View
  18. Suarez-Lledo V, Alvarez-Galvez J. Assessing the Role of Social Bots During the COVID-19 Pandemic: Infodemic, Disagreement, and Criticism. Journal of Medical Internet Research 2022;24(8):e36085 View
  19. Haupt M, Cuomo R, Li J, Nali M, Mackey T. The influence of social media affordances on drug dealer posting behavior across multiple social networking sites (SNS). Computers in Human Behavior Reports 2022;8:100235 View
  20. Xu H, Liu P, Guan B, Wang Q, Da Silva D, Hu L. Achieving Online and Scalable Information Integrity by Harnessing Social Spam Correlations. IEEE Access 2023;11:7768 View
  21. Larson H, Lin L, Goble R. Vaccines and the social amplification of risk. Risk Analysis 2022;42(7):1409 View
  22. Ruiz-Núñez C, Segado-Fernández S, Jiménez-Gómez B, Hidalgo P, Magdalena C, Pollo M, Santillán-Garcia A, Herrera-Peco I. Bots’ Activity on COVID-19 Pro and Anti-Vaccination Networks: Analysis of Spanish-Written Messages on Twitter. Vaccines 2022;10(8):1240 View
  23. Greve H, Rao H, Vicinanza P, Zhou E. Online Conspiracy Groups: Micro-Bloggers, Bots, and Coronavirus Conspiracy Talk on Twitter. American Sociological Review 2022;87(6):919 View
  24. Borah P, Kim S, Hsu Y. “Masks do not work”: COVID-19 misperceptions and theory-driven corrective strategies on Facebook. Online Information Review 2023;47(5):880 View
  25. Lee D, Rundle-Thiele S, Li G. Motivating Seasonal Influenza Vaccination and Cross-Promoting COVID-19 Vaccination: An Audience Segmentation Study among University Students. Vaccines 2021;9(12):1397 View
  26. Prescott S, Schminkey D, Abukhalaf D, DeGuzman P, Dreisbach C. A framework to guide research and practice response to emerging infectious diseases: Genomic‐to‐global considerations. Public Health Nursing 2023;40(1):144 View
  27. Aiyer I, Shaik L, Kashyap R, Surani S. COVID-19 Misinformation: A Potent Co-Factor in the COVID-19 Pandemic. Cureus 2022 View
  28. Zarei K, Farahbakhsh R, Crespi N, Tyson G. Dataset of Coronavirus Content From Instagram With an Exploratory Analysis. IEEE Access 2021;9:157192 View
  29. Friedman S, Jordan A, Perlman D, Nikolopoulos G, Mateu-Gelabert P. Emerging Zoonotic Infections, Social Processes and Their Measurement and Enhanced Surveillance to Improve Zoonotic Epidemic Responses: A “Big Events” Perspective. International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health 2022;19(2):995 View
  30. Uyheng J, Bellutta D, Carley K. Bots Amplify and Redirect Hate Speech in Online Discourse About Racism During the COVID-19 Pandemic. Social Media + Society 2022;8(3) View
  31. Cai M, Luo H, Meng X, Cui Y, Wang W. Network distribution and sentiment interaction: Information diffusion mechanisms between social bots and human users on social media. Information Processing & Management 2023;60(2):103197 View
  32. Papadopoulou O, Makedas T, Apostolidis L, Poldi F, Papadopoulos S, Kompatsiaris I. MeVer NetworkX: Network Analysis and Visualization for Tracing Disinformation. Future Internet 2022;14(5):147 View
  33. Josephson R, Gillombardo C. Cardiovascular services in Covid-19 - Impact of the pandemic and lessons learned. Progress in Cardiovascular Diseases 2023;76:12 View
  34. Gilmary R, Venkatesan A, Vaiyapuri G, Balamurali D. DNA-influenced automated behavior detection on twitter through relative entropy. Scientific Reports 2022;12(1) View
  35. Goldwire M, Johnson S, Abdalla M, Advani A, Bernknopf A, Colella A, Kehr H, Kier K, May D, May J, Picone M, Saad M, Thornby K, Ward K. Medical misinformation: A primer and recommendations for pharmacists. JACCP: JOURNAL OF THE AMERICAN COLLEGE OF CLINICAL PHARMACY 2023;6(5):497 View
  36. Preiss J. Predicting the impact of online news articles – is information necessary?. Multimedia Tools and Applications 2023;82(6):8791 View
  37. Lotto M, Hanjahanja-Phiri T, Padalko H, Oetomo A, Butt Z, Boger J, Millar J, Cruvinel T, Morita P. Ethical principles for infodemiology and infoveillance studies concerning infodemic management on social media. Frontiers in Public Health 2023;11 View
  38. McPhedran R, Ratajczak M, Mawby M, King E, Yang Y, Gold N. Psychological inoculation protects against the social media infodemic. Scientific Reports 2023;13(1) View
  39. Erokhin D, Komendantova N. The role of bots in spreading conspiracies: Case study of discourse about earthquakes on Twitter. International Journal of Disaster Risk Reduction 2023;92:103740 View
  40. Ng J, Liu S, Maini I, Pereira W, Cramer H, Moher D. Complementary, alternative, and integrative medicine-specific COVID-19 misinformation on social media: A scoping review. Integrative Medicine Research 2023;12(3):100975 View
  41. Franks A, Otani H, Roupe G. (A)symmetries in Memory and Directed Forgetting of Political Stimuli. Experimental Psychology 2023;70(2):68 View
  42. Vicari R, Komendatova N. Systematic meta-analysis of research on AI tools to deal with misinformation on social media during natural and anthropogenic hazards and disasters. Humanities and Social Sciences Communications 2023;10(1) View
  43. Lösch L, Zuiderent-Jerak T, Kunneman F, Syurina E, Bongers M, Stein M, Chan M, Willems W, Timen A. Capturing Emerging Experiential Knowledge for Vaccination Guidelines Through Natural Language Processing: Proof-of-Concept Study. Journal of Medical Internet Research 2023;25:e44461 View
  44. Etta G, Cinelli M, Galeazzi A, Valensise C, Quattrociocchi W, Conti M. Comparing the Impact of Social Media Regulations on News Consumption. IEEE Transactions on Computational Social Systems 2023;10(3):1252 View
  45. Isip Tan I, Cleofas J, Solano G, Pillejera J, Catapang J. Interdisciplinary Approach to Identify and Characterize COVID-19 Misinformation on Twitter: Mixed Methods Study. JMIR Formative Research 2023;7:e41134 View
  46. Sauvat L, Bleibtreu A, Peiffer-Smadja N. Les réseaux sociaux pour l'infectiologue. Médecine et Maladies Infectieuses Formation 2023;2(3):130 View
  47. Gilmary R, Venkatesan A. Entropy-Based Automation Detection on Twitter Using DNA Profiling. SN Computer Science 2023;4(6) View
  48. Morita P, Zakir Hussain I, Kaur J, Lotto M, Butt Z. Tweeting for Health Using Real-time Mining and Artificial Intelligence–Based Analytics: Design and Development of a Big Data Ecosystem for Detecting and Analyzing Misinformation on Twitter. Journal of Medical Internet Research 2023;25:e44356 View
  49. Negrón J, Rodriguez-Malavé M, Camacho C, Malavé C, Rodríguez-Guzmán V. The overturn of Roe v. Wade beyond abortion: a snapshot of methotrexate accessibility for people with rheumatic and musculoskeletal diseases—a mixed methods study using Twitter data. Rheumatology International 2023;43(12):2293 View
  50. Almodt R. From criticism to conspiracies: The populist discourse of COVID-19 sceptics in Germany’s Querdenken community on Telegram. Discourse & Society 2024;35(1):3 View
  51. Nault K, Ruhi U. User experience with disinformation-countering tools: usability challenges and suggestions for improvement. Frontiers in Computer Science 2023;5 View
  52. Uyheng J, Robertson D, Carley K. Bridging online and offline dynamics of the face mask infodemic. BMC Digital Health 2023;1(1) View
  53. Aguilera A, Quinteros P, Dongo I, Cardinale Y. CrediBot: Applying Bot Detection for Credibility Analysis on Twitter. IEEE Access 2023;11:108365 View
  54. Luo H, Meng X, Zhao Y, Cai M. Rise of social bots: The impact of social bots on public opinion dynamics in public health emergencies from an information ecology perspective. Telematics and Informatics 2023;85:102051 View
  55. Nadareishvili I, Bazas T, Petrosillo N, Berce V, Firth J, Mansilha A, Leventer M, Renieri A, Zampolini M, Papalois V. The Medical Community’s Role in Communication Strategies during Health Crises—Perspective from European Union of Medical Specialists (UEMS). Infectious Disease Reports 2023;15(4):370 View
  56. Clancey W. We Can’t Expect our Institutions to Ensure Ethical AI. Research-Technology Management 2023;66(5):19 View
  57. Daume S, Bjersér P, Galaz V. Mapping the automation of Twitter communications on climate change, sustainability, and environmental crises — a review of current research. Current Opinion in Environmental Sustainability 2023;65:101384 View
  58. Li G, Zhang R, Song B, Wang C, Shen Q, He X, Cao Y. Effects of SARS-CoV-2 Vaccines on Sperm Quality: Systematic Review. JMIR Public Health and Surveillance 2023;9:e48511 View
  59. Bayani A, Ayotte A, Nikiema J. Automated Credibility Assessment of Web-Based Health Information Considering Health on the Net Foundation Code of Conduct (HONcode): Model Development and Validation Study. JMIR Formative Research 2023;7:e52995 View
  60. Seckin O, Atalay A, Otenen E, Duygu U, Varol O. Mechanisms Driving Online Vaccine Debate During the COVID-19 Pandemic. Social Media + Society 2024;10(1) View
  61. Wynn M. Online spaces and the control of communicable diseases: implications for nursing practice. Nursing Standard 2024;39(5):39 View
  62. Ziapour A, Malekzadeh R, Darabi F, Yıldırım M, Montazeri N, Kianipour N, Nejhaddadgar N. The role of social media literacy in infodemic management: a systematic review. Frontiers in Digital Health 2024;6 View
  63. Wei C, Liang G, Yan K. BotGSL: Twitter Bot Detection with Graph Structure Learning. The Computer Journal 2024;67(7):2486 View
  64. Ng L, Kloo I, Clark S, Carley K. An exploratory analysis of COVID bot vs human disinformation dissemination stemming from the Disinformation Dozen on Telegram. Journal of Computational Social Science 2024;7(1):695 View
  65. Sullivan P, Starr V, Dubois E, Starr A, Acharibasam J, McIlduff C. Where past meets present: Indigenous vaccine hesitancy in Saskatchewan. Medical Humanities 2023;49(2):321 View
  66. Dong X, Ye L, Lian Y. Who has dominated information spreading on social media during the early stage of COVID-19 pandemic in China? A temporal network analysis. International Journal of Disaster Risk Reduction 2024;107:104493 View
  67. Peng H, Zhang J, Huang X, Hao Z, Li A, Yu Z, Yu P. Unsupervised Social Bot Detection via Structural Information Theory. ACM Transactions on Information Systems 2024;42(6):1 View
  68. Ropi I, Lillo M, Malavasi M, Argentieri A, Barbieri A, Lou B, Barbieri D, Passavanti M. The psychological implications of COVID-19 over the eighteen-month time span following the virus breakout in Italy. Frontiers in Psychology 2024;15 View
  69. Zhao W, Russell C, Jankovsky A, Cannon T, Pittenger C, Pushkarskaya H. Information processing style and institutional trust as factors of COVID vaccine hesitancy. Scientific Reports 2024;14(1) View
  70. Tomassi A, Falegnami A, Romano E, Bastani P. Mapping automatic social media information disorder. The role of bots and AI in spreading misleading information in society. PLOS ONE 2024;19(5):e0303183 View
  71. Barański J, Smereka J. Dezinformacja na temat COVID-19 w mediach społecznościowych a kryzys epistemiczny. Przegląd problemów. Kwartalnik Historii Nauki i Techniki 2024;69(2):9 View
  72. Le M. The spread of fake news: Disclosure willingness role. Heliyon 2024;10(14):e34468 View
  73. Wei R, Lo V, Guo J, Yu W. An Unhelpful Chain: Antecedents and Consequences of COVID-19 News Avoidance in China and Singapore. Journal of Broadcasting & Electronic Media 2024;68(5):694 View
  74. Ren L, Zhang J, Su Z, Lai F, Xiong D. Evolution and governance of online public opinion during COVID-19: a hybrid approach using communication visualization, SIR modeling, and simulation validation. Frontiers in Physics 2024;12 View
  75. de Jong A, Dijkstra A, MacLeod M, de Jong M. Science communication under pressure: perspectives of Dutch researchers and journalists on COVID-19 communication challenges. Frontiers in Communication 2024;9 View
  76. Gong Y, Shang L, Wang D. Integrating Social Explanations Into Explainable Artificial Intelligence (XAI) for Combating Misinformation: Vision and Challenges. IEEE Transactions on Computational Social Systems 2024;11(5):6705 View
  77. Zouzou Y, Varol O. Unsupervised detection of coordinated fake-follower campaigns on social media. EPJ Data Science 2024;13(1) View
  78. Wohl D, Adam S, Gibbs K, Moskowitz A, Ortel T, Singh U, Jilg N, Evering T, Fischer W, Taiwo B, Daar E, Lindsell C, Naggie S, Rothman R, Dunsmore S, McAdams M, Vail J, Jayaweera D. Engaging communities in therapeutics clinical research during pandemics: Experiences and lessons from the ACTIV COVID-19 therapeutics research initiative. Journal of Clinical and Translational Science 2024;8(1) View
  79. Tsvetkova M, Yasseri T, Pescetelli N, Werner T. A new sociology of humans and machines. Nature Human Behaviour 2024;8(10):1864 View
  80. Armstrong S, Neal C, Tang R, Rim H, Vraga E. Bot Versus Humans: Who Can Challenge Corporate Hypocrisy on Social Media?. Social Media + Society 2024;10(4) View
  81. Xu J, Wu Z, Wass L, Larson H, Lin L. Mapping global public perspectives on mRNA vaccines and therapeutics. npj Vaccines 2024;9(1) View
  82. Villar-Rodríguez G, Huertas-García Á, Martín A, Huertas-Tato J, Camacho D. DisTrack: A New Tool For Semi-automatic Misinformation Tracking in Online Social Networks. Cognitive Computation 2025;17(1) View
  83. O'Brien G, Ganjigunta R, Dhillon P. Wellness Influencer Responses to COVID-19 Vaccines on Social Media: A Longitudinal Observational Study. Journal of Medical Internet Research 2024;26:e56651 View

Books/Policy Documents

  1. Dhir K, Singh P, Dwivedi Y, Sawhney S, Sawhney R. Co-creating for Context in the Transfer and Diffusion of IT. View
  2. Bautista J, Zhang Y, Gwizdka J. Information for a Better World: Shaping the Global Future. View
  3. Benzie A, Montasari R. Artificial Intelligence and National Security. View
  4. Singh S. Contemporary Issues in Global Medicine and Moving Toward International Healthcare Equity. View
  5. Boccia Artieri G. Infodemic Disorder. View
  6. Al-Jalabneh A, Safori A, Shlool H. The Implementation of Smart Technologies for Business Success and Sustainability. View
  7. Ferreira C, Doursout M, Balingit J. 2000 Years of Pandemics. View
  8. Batra K, Batra R, Sharma M. Effective Use of Social Media in Public Health. View
  9. Saleem M, Khan S, Al Shamsi I, Magd H. Global Applications of the Internet of Things in Digital Marketing. View
  10. Westberry C, Palmer X, Potter L. Proceedings of the Future Technologies Conference (FTC) 2023, Volume 3. View
  11. Thang P, Trang T. Micro-Electronics and Telecommunication Engineering. View
  12. Ahmad M. Global Perspectives on Social Media Usage Within Governments. View
  13. Mantello P, Ho T, Podoletz L. The Palgrave Handbook of Malicious Use of AI and Psychological Security. View
  14. Zhou M, Feng W, Zhu Y, Zhang D, Dong Y, Tang J. Machine Learning and Knowledge Discovery in Databases: Applied Data Science and Demo Track. View
  15. Soares H. Legal Aspects of Autonomous Systems. View
  16. Zhang S, Zhang T, Zhang G. Health Information Processing. View
  17. Jenkins K, Williams-Johnson D, Sun W. Social Media, Youth, and the Global South. View
  18. Kuzma R, Cruickshank I, Carley K. Complex Networks & Their Applications X. View