Brennen, J. S., Simon, F., Howard, P. N., & Nielsen, R. K. (2020). Types, sources, and claims of COVID-19 misinformation. Reuters Institute, 7, 3-1.  http://www.primaonline.it/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/COVID-19_reuters.pdf

University of California, Berkeley

This study looked at the main types, sources, and claims of COVID-19 misinformation. They looked at the proportion of misinformation that involved reconfiguration of true information vs completely fabricated information, proportion of misinformation that come from public figures versus ordinary people and their engagement, and how social media platforms have responded to such misinformation. 

Types, Sources, and Claims of COVID-19 Misinformation

- independent individuals have increased with the misinformation about COVID-19 by 900% from January to March
- most misinformation is a reconfiguration of true information where the true information is recontextualized, spun, or twisted rather than completely made up (59% vs 38% in the sample in this study)
- misinformation from prominent figures such as celebrities and politicians account for only 20% of misinformation but a majority (69%) of engagement
- most misinformation comes from ordinary people, but these posts get much less engagement
- largest category of misinformation is about policy and actions of public authorities
- social media platforms have responded to misinformation by attaching warnings or taking posts down
- 59% of false posts on Twitter remain, 27% on YouTube, and 24% on Facebook

Types, Sources, and Claims of COVID-19 Misinformation results

Articles were analyzed based on a coding scheme, which included descriptive variables and different measures. These are all listed in the codebook. Two coders analyzed the data, with both analyzing 10% of the data and using Cohen's kappa to measure interrater reliability. Coders also recorded warning-labels on social sites and engagement of social media posts. 

Types, Sources, and Claims of COVID-19 Misinformation methodology

This study looked at 225 pieces of misinformation. These pieces were rated false or misleading by international fact-checking organizations. 

To collect data for the fact-checks, they sampled from 2871 articles provided by First Draft News. First Draft News consolidates fact-checks related to COVID-19 using the Poynter's International Fact-Checking Network (IFCN) and Google's Fact Check Explorer tool. This was taken from January to March of 2020. They took a random sample of 18% of the articles after excluding all the non-English ones, and secondary sample of 20%. They then replaced all of the duplicates and rated "true" articles in the first sample with articles in the second sample. 


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