Social Media Infodemic During COVID-19 Outbreak

Social media is a common platform that enables its users to share opinions, personal experiences, perspectives with one another instantaneously, globally. It has played a paramount role during pandemics such as COVID-19 and unveiled itself as a crucial means to communicate between the sources and the individuals. However, it also has become a place to disseminate misinformation and fake news rapidly. Infodemic, a plethora of information, some authentic some not makes it even harder to general people to receive factual and trustworthy information when required, has grown to be a major risk to public health and social media is developing as a trendy platform for this infodemic. This commentary aims to explore how social media has affected the current situation. We also aim to share our insight to control this misinformation. This commentary contributes to evolving knowledge to counter fake news or health-related information shared over various social media platforms.

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COVID-19-Related Social Media Fake News in India

Journalism and Media ◽

10.3390/journalmedia2010007 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 2 (1) ◽

pp. 100-114 ◽

Cited By ~ 1

Author(s):

Md. Sayeed Al-Zaman

Keyword(s):

Public Health ◽

Social Media ◽

Fake News ◽

Future Health ◽

Health Crisis ◽

Healthcare Facilities ◽

Mainstream Media ◽

Health Related ◽

Social Media Platforms ◽

Audio Video

COVID-19-related online fake news poses a threat to Indian public health. In response, this study seeks to understand the five important features of COVID-19-related social media fake news by analyzing 125 Indian fake news. The analysis produces five major findings based on five research questions. First, the seven themes of fake news are health, religiopolitical, political, crime, entertainment, religious, and miscellaneous. Health-related fake news (67.2%) is on the top of the list that includes medicine, medical and healthcare facilities, viral infection, and doctor-patient issues. Second, the seven types of fake news contents are text, photo, audio, video, text and photo, text and video, and text and photo and video. More fake news takes the form of text and video (47.2%). Third, online media produces more fake news (94.4%) than mainstream media (5.6%). More interestingly, four social media platforms: Twitter, Facebook, WhatsApp, and YouTube, produce most of the fake news. Fourth, relatively more fake news has international connections (54.4%) as the COVID-19 pandemic is a global phenomenon. Fifth, most of the COVID-19-related fake news is negative (63.2%) which could be a real threat to public health. These results may contribute to the academic understanding of social media fake news during the present and future health-crisis period. This paper concludes by stating some limitations regarding the data source and results, as well as provides a few suggestions for further research.

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Understanding the Lived Experience of Patients with Melanoma: Real-World Evidence Generated through a European Social Media Listening Analysis (Preprint)

10.2196/preprints.35930 ◽

2021 ◽

Author(s):

Jyoti Chauhan ◽

Sathyaraj Aasaithambi ◽

Iván Márquez-Rodas ◽

Luigi Formisano ◽

Sophie Papa ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Social Media ◽

Lived Experience ◽

Social Life ◽

Patient Journey ◽

Related Information ◽

Stakeholder Perspectives ◽

Health Related ◽

Social Media Platforms ◽

The Uk ◽

Media Channels

BACKGROUND Cutaneous melanoma is an aggressive malignancy that is proposed to account for 90% of skin cancer-related mortality. Individuals with melanoma experience both physical and psychological impacts associated with their diagnosis and treatment. Health-related information is being increasingly accessed and shared by stakeholders on social media platforms. OBJECTIVE This study aimed to assess how individuals living with melanoma use social media to discuss their needs and provide their perceptions of the disease, from across 14 European countries. METHODS Social media sources including Twitter, forums, and blogs were searched using predefined search strings of keywords relating to melanoma. Manual and automated relevancy approaches filtered the extracted data for content that provided patient-centric insights. This contextualized data was then mined for insightful concepts around symptoms, diagnosis, treatment, impacts, and the lived experiences of melanoma. RESULTS A total of 182,000 posts related to melanoma were identified between November 2018‒November 2020. Following exclusion of irrelevant posts and using random sampling methodology, 864 posts were identified as relevant to the study objectives. Of the social media channels included, Twitter was the most commonly used, followed by forums and blogs. Most posts originated from the UK (38%) and Spain (16%). Sixty-two percent of relevant posts were categorized as originating from individuals with melanoma. The most frequently discussed melanoma-related topics were treatment (55%), diagnosis and tests (33%), and remission (24%). The majority of treatment discussions were about surgery (67%), followed by immunotherapy (12%). In total, 255 posts discussed the impacts of melanoma, which included emotional burden (70%), physical impacts (24%), effects on social life (17%), and financial impacts (4%). CONCLUSIONS Findings from this study highlight how melanoma stakeholders discuss key concepts associated with the condition on social media, adding to the conceptual model of the patient journey. This social media listening approach is a powerful tool in exploring melanoma stakeholder perspectives, providing insights that can be used to corroborate existing data and inform future studies.

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A Study of Social Media Utilization by Individuals With Tinnitus

American Journal of Audiology ◽

10.1044/2018_aja-18-0033 ◽

2018 ◽

Vol 27 (4) ◽

pp. 559-569 ◽

Cited By ~ 8

Author(s):

Aniruddha K. Deshpande ◽

Shruti Balvalli Deshpande ◽

Colleen O'Brien

Keyword(s):

Social Media ◽

Health Care Providers ◽

Care Providers ◽

Related Information ◽

Health Related ◽

Social Media Platforms ◽

Youtube Videos ◽

Key Words Tinnitus ◽

Facebook Pages ◽

Ringing In The Ears

PurposeAs more people experience tinnitus, social awareness of tinnitus has consequently increased, due in part to the Internet. Social media platforms are being used increasingly by patients to seek health-related information for various conditions including tinnitus. These online platforms may be used to seek guidance from and share experiences with individuals suffering from a similar disorder. Some social media platforms can also be used to communicate with health care providers. The aim of this study was to investigate the prevalence of tinnitus-related information on social media platforms.MethodThe present investigation analyzed the portrayal of tinnitus-related information across 3 social media platforms: Facebook (pages and groups), Twitter, and YouTube. We performed a comprehensive analysis of the platforms using the key words “tinnitus” and “ringing in the ears.” The results on each platform were manually examined by 2 reviewers based on social media activity metrics, such as “likes,” “followers,” and “comments.”ResultsThe different social media platforms yielded diverse results, allowing individuals to learn about tinnitus, seek support, advocate for tinnitus awareness, and connect with medical professionals. The greatest activity was seen on Facebook pages, followed by YouTube videos. Various degrees of misinformation were found across all social media platforms.ConclusionsThe present investigation reveals copious amounts of tinnitus-related information on different social media platforms, which the community with tinnitus may use to learn about and cope with the condition. Audiologists must be aware that tinnitus sufferers often turn to social media for additional help and should understand the current climate of how tinnitus is portrayed. Clinicians should be equipped to steer individuals with tinnitus toward valid information.

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Using Social Media to Understand Public Perceptions of Per- and Polyfluoroalkyl Substances (Preprint)

10.2196/preprints.25614 ◽

2020 ◽

Author(s):

Hao Tian ◽

Christy Gaines ◽

Lori Launi ◽

Ana Pomales ◽

Germaine Vazquez ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Public Health ◽

Social Media ◽

Health Impacts ◽

Health Concern ◽

Government Agencies ◽

Public Health Concern ◽

Related Information ◽

The Social ◽

Social Media Platforms ◽

Polyfluoroalkyl Substances

BACKGROUND Per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) are environmental contaminants that have received significant public attention. PFAS are a large group of human-made chemicals that have been used in industry and consumer products worldwide since the 1950s. Human exposure to PFAS is a growing public health concern. Studies suggest that exposure to PFAS may increase risk for some cancers and have negative health impacts on endocrine, metabolic, and immune systems. Federal and state health partners are investigating exposure to and possible health effects associated with PFAS. Government agencies can observe social media discourse on PFAS to better understand public concerns and develop targeted communication and outreach efforts. OBJECTIVE The primary objective is to understand how social media is used to share, disseminate, and engage in public discussions of PFAS-related information in the United States. METHODS We investigated PFAS-related content across two social media platforms between 5/1/2017 and 4/30/2019 to identify how the social media is used in the U.S. to seek and disseminate PFAS-related information. Our key variable of interest was posts that mentioned “PFAS,” “PFOA,” “PFOS,” and their hashtag variations across social media platforms. Additional variables included post-type, time, PFAS-event, and geographic location. We examined term-use and post-type differences across platforms. We used descriptive statistics and regression analysis to assess the incidences of PFAS discussions and to identify time, event, and geographic patterns. We qualitatively analyzed social media content to determine the most prevalent themes discussed on social media platforms. RESULTS Our analysis revealed Twitter had a significantly greater volume of PFAS-related posts compared to Reddit (98,264 vs 3,126 posts, respectively). PFAS-related social media posts increased 670% over 2 years, indicating a marked increase in the social media users’ interest and awareness of PFAS. Active engagement varied across platforms, with Reddit posts demonstrating more in-depth discussions compared to passive likes and reposts among Twitter users. Spikes in PFAS discussions were evident and connected to discovery of contamination events, media coverage, and scientific publications. Thematic analysis revealed that the social media users see PFAS as a significant public health concern, harbors skepticism of some existing PFAS information sources, and seeks a trusted source of information about PFAS-related public health efforts. CONCLUSIONS The analysis identified a prevalent theme—on the social media, PFAS are perceived as an immediate public health concern and demonstrates a growing sense of urgency to understand this emerging contaminant and its potential health impacts. Government agencies can continue using social media research to better understand the changing community sentiment on PFAS and disseminate targeted PFAS-related scientific information, then use social media as a forum for dispelling misinformation, communicating scientific findings, and providing resources for relevant public health services.

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Characteristics of and User Engagement With Antivaping Posts on Instagram: Observational Study (Preprint)

10.2196/preprints.29600 ◽

2021 ◽

Author(s):

Yankun Gao ◽

Zidian Xie ◽

Li Sun ◽

Chenliang Xu ◽

Dongmei Li

Keyword(s):

Social Media ◽

User Engagement ◽

Image Content ◽

Adverse Health Effects ◽

Related Information ◽

Youth And Young Adults ◽

Health Related ◽

Social Media Platforms ◽

Text Information ◽

Image Type

BACKGROUND Although government agencies acknowledge that messages about the adverse health effects of e-cigarette use should be promoted on social media, effectively delivering those health messages is challenging. Instagram is one of the most popular social media platforms among US youth and young adults, and it has been used to educate the public about the potential harm of vaping through antivaping posts. OBJECTIVE We aim to analyze the characteristics of and user engagement with antivaping posts on Instagram to inform future message development and information delivery. METHODS A total of 11,322 Instagram posts were collected from November 18, 2019, to January 2, 2020, by using antivaping hashtags including #novape, #novaping, #stopvaping, #dontvape, #antivaping, #quitvaping, #antivape, #stopjuuling, #dontvapeonthepizza, and #escapethevape. Among those posts, 1025 posts were randomly selected and 500 antivaping posts were further identified by hand coding. The image type, image content, and account type of antivaping posts were hand coded, the text information in the caption was explored by topic modeling, and the user engagement of each category was compared. RESULTS Analyses found that antivaping images of the educational/warning type were the most common (253/500; 50.6%). The average likes of the educational/warning type (15 likes/post) were significantly lower than the catchphrase image type (these emphasized a slogan such as “athletesdontvape” in the image; 32.5 likes/post; P<.001). The majority of the antivaping posts contained the image content element text (n=332, 66.4%), followed by the image content element people/person (n=110, 22%). The images containing people/person elements (32.8 likes/post) had more likes than the images containing other elements (13.8-21.1 likes/post). The captions of the antivaping Instagram posts covered topics including “lung health,” “teen vaping,” “stop vaping,” and “vaping death cases.” Among the 500 antivaping Instagram posts, while most posts were from the antivaping community (n=177, 35.4%) and personal account types (n=182, 36.4%), the antivaping community account type had the highest average number of posts (1.69 posts/account). However, there was no difference in the number of likes among different account types. CONCLUSIONS Multiple features of antivaping Instagram posts may be related to user engagement and perception. This study identified the critical elements associated with high user engagement, which could be used to design antivaping posts to deliver health-related information more efficiently.

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Mis-infodemic: The Achilles’ heel in combating the COVID-19 pandemic in an Indian perspective

Monaldi Archives for Chest Disease ◽

10.4081/monaldi.2020.1405 ◽

2020 ◽

Vol 90 (2) ◽

Author(s):

Soumya Swaroop Sahoo ◽

Dinesh Prasad Sahu ◽

Ankita Kankaria

Keyword(s):

Social Media ◽

International Organizations ◽

Communication Strategies ◽

Related Information ◽

Governmental Organizations ◽

The People ◽

Health Related ◽

Social Media Platforms ◽

Negative Role ◽

Indian Perspective

In this ongoing SARS-CoV2 Corona virus pandemic, we are witnessing an uninhibited spread of mis-information on various social media platforms. This spread of mis-information or “mis-infodemic” is playing a negative role in our fight against the virus with far reaching consequences. International organizations like the WHO and other governmental organizations have geared up to the occasion to limit the spread of these and bring clarity in this context. In this time of crisis, risk communication is vital in the communication between organizations/government and the people. But apart from the organizations, the onus is on the people and media to realise the importance and verify the authenticity of information being circulated. It is imperative that information, being a double edged sword, is handled with caution and effective communication strategies are devised for the dissemination of accurate and scientific health related information. Social media can be used in a constructive way in mitigating the effects of this pandemic for the betterment of the society.

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Health-related fake news on social media platforms: A systematic literature review

New Media & Society ◽

10.1177/14614448211038762 ◽

2021 ◽

pp. 146144482110387

Author(s):

Cristiane Melchior ◽

Mírian Oliveira

Keyword(s):

Social Media ◽

Health Information ◽

Future Research ◽

Fake News ◽

Health Agencies ◽

Health Related ◽

Social Media Platforms ◽

Future Work ◽

News Sharing

This review aims to (a) investigate the characteristics of both the research community and the published research on health-related fake news on social media platforms, and (b) identify the challenges and provide recommendations for future research on the subject. We reviewed 69 journal articles found in the main academic databases up to April 2021. The studies extracted data mainly from Twitter, YouTube, and Facebook. Most articles aimed to investigate the public’s reaction to fake health information, concluding that health agencies and professionals should increase their online presence. The articles also suggest that future work should aim to improve the quality of health information on social media platforms, develop new tools and strategies to combat fake news sharing, and study the credibility of health information. Nonetheless, those in control of the platforms are the only ones which can take effective measures to ensure that their users receive reliable information.

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Trend of Parental Refusal or Delay of Childhood Vaccinations

MacEwan University Student eJournal ◽

10.31542/j.muse.738 ◽

2016 ◽

Vol 3 (1) ◽

Author(s):

Meagan Marie Daoust

Keyword(s):

Public Health ◽

Social Media ◽

Healthcare System ◽

Educational Context ◽

Health Consequences ◽

Missed Opportunities ◽

The Public ◽

Health Related ◽

Parental Refusal

The healthcare trend of parental refusal or delay of childhood vaccinations will be investigated through a complex Cynefin Framework component in an economic and educational context, allowing patterns to emerge that suggest recommendations of change for the RN role and healthcare system. As a major contributing factor adding complexity to this trend, social media is heavily used for health related knowledge, making it is difficult to determine which information is most trustworthy. Missed opportunities for immunization can result, leading to economic and health consequences for the healthcare system and population. Through analysis of the powerful impact social media has on this evolving trend and public health, an upstream recommendation for RNs to respond with is to utilize reliable social media to the parents’ advantage within practice. The healthcare system should focus on incorporating vaccine-related education into existing programs and classes offered to parents, and implementing new vaccine classes for the public.

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Rapid deployment of a community engagement study and educational trial via social media: implementation of the UC-COVID study

Trials ◽

10.1186/s13063-021-05467-3 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 22 (1) ◽

Author(s):

Lauren E. Wisk ◽

Russell G. Buhr

Keyword(s):

Social Media ◽

Search Activity ◽

Community Partners ◽

Community Values ◽

Sample Representativeness ◽

Adult Participants ◽

Health Related ◽

Social Media Platforms ◽

Rapid Deployment

Abstract Background In response to the COVID-19 pandemic and associated adoption of scarce resource allocation (SRA) policies, we sought to rapidly deploy a novel survey to ascertain community values and preferences for SRA and to test the utility of a brief intervention to improve knowledge of and values alignment with a new SRA policy. Given social distancing and precipitous evolution of the pandemic, Internet-enabled recruitment was deemed the best method to engage a community-based sample. We quantify the efficiency and acceptability of this Internet-based recruitment for engaging a trial cohort and describe the approach used for implementing a health-related trial entirely online using off-the-shelf tools. Methods We recruited 1971 adult participants (≥ 18 years) via engagement with community partners and organizations and outreach through direct and social media messaging. We quantified response rate and participant characteristics of our sample, examine sample representativeness, and evaluate potential non-response bias. Results Recruitment was similarly derived from direct referral from partner organizations and broader social media based outreach, with extremely low study entry from organic (non-invited) search activity. Of social media platforms, Facebook was the highest yield recruitment source. Bot activity was present but minimal and identifiable through meta-data and engagement behavior. Recruited participants differed from broader populations in terms of sex, ethnicity, and education, but had similar prevalence of chronic conditions. Retention was satisfactory, with entrance into the first follow-up survey for 61% of those invited. Conclusions We demonstrate that rapid recruitment into a longitudinal intervention trial via social media is feasible, efficient, and acceptable. Recruitment in conjunction with community partners representing target populations, and with outreach across multiple platforms, is recommended to optimize sample size and diversity. Trial implementation, engagement tracking, and retention are feasible with off-the-shelf tools using preexisting platforms. Trial registration ClinicalTrials.gov NCT04373135. Registered on May 4, 2020

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Intelligent Detection of False Information in Arabic Tweets Utilizing Hybrid Harris Hawks Based Feature Selection and Machine Learning Models

Symmetry ◽

10.3390/sym13040556 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 13 (4) ◽

pp. 556

Author(s):

Thaer Thaher ◽

Mahmoud Saheb ◽

Hamza Turabieh ◽

Hamouda Chantar

Keyword(s):

Machine Learning ◽

Social Media ◽

Feature Selection ◽

Language Processing ◽

User Profile ◽

Vital Role ◽

Classification Model ◽

Fake News ◽

False Information ◽

Social Media Platforms

Fake or false information on social media platforms is a significant challenge that leads to deliberately misleading users due to the inclusion of rumors, propaganda, or deceptive information about a person, organization, or service. Twitter is one of the most widely used social media platforms, especially in the Arab region, where the number of users is steadily increasing, accompanied by an increase in the rate of fake news. This drew the attention of researchers to provide a safe online environment free of misleading information. This paper aims to propose a smart classification model for the early detection of fake news in Arabic tweets utilizing Natural Language Processing (NLP) techniques, Machine Learning (ML) models, and Harris Hawks Optimizer (HHO) as a wrapper-based feature selection approach. Arabic Twitter corpus composed of 1862 previously annotated tweets was utilized by this research to assess the efficiency of the proposed model. The Bag of Words (BoW) model is utilized using different term-weighting schemes for feature extraction. Eight well-known learning algorithms are investigated with varying combinations of features, including user-profile, content-based, and words-features. Reported results showed that the Logistic Regression (LR) with Term Frequency-Inverse Document Frequency (TF-IDF) model scores the best rank. Moreover, feature selection based on the binary HHO algorithm plays a vital role in reducing dimensionality, thereby enhancing the learning model’s performance for fake news detection. Interestingly, the proposed BHHO-LR model can yield a better enhancement of 5% compared with previous works on the same dataset.

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