Singh, L., Bansal, S., Bode, L., Budak, C., Chi, G., Kawintiranon, K., ... & Wang, Y. (2020). A first look at COVID-19 information and misinformation sharing on Twitter. arXiv preprint arXiv:2003.13907. https://arxiv.org/abs/2003.13907. 

University of Michigan - Ann Arbor

This study found that while misinformation and myths were certainly present, they were not as prevalent as the spread and discussion of scientific information and data. In addition, there is a general correlation between conversations via Twitter and the spread of Covid-19. However most of the information spread through Twitter are still credible, even though false information are more likely to be retweeted 

A first look at COVID-19 information and misinformation sharing on Twitter

- Searched “Coronavirus Common Myths” using different websites to find the most common ones through sources such as blogs, newspapers/media, and medical organizations
- Grouped myths with common themes together and ranked how dangerous they were to the well-being of the general public
- Chose 10 myths to study in more detail (i.e. home remedies, conspiracy theories about the virus origin, misinformation about warm climates killing the virus)
- Searched the 10 myths on Twitter for 10 tweets that were most closely related to each of the myths to further reduce the 10 myths into top 5 most common myths on Twitter (flu comparison, heat kills disease, home remedies, origin of Covid-19, vaccine development) 
- About 16,000 tweets (a little less than 0.6% of all tweets) pertained to these 5 myths

A first look at COVID-19 information and misinformation sharing on Twitter - Identifying Myths Data Collection

- To study the difference between high- and low-quality sources used to support Tweets, researchers separated sources that the selected Tweets could be traced back to into two groups
- High quality health sources (HQHS) included information from the CDC, top medial journals and hospitals, US government agencies providing official health recommendations
- Low quality misinformation sources (LQMS) included sources that NewsGuard identified as troublesome and spreading false information 

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