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‘Like a Virus’:
Disinformation in the Age of COVID-19
Tim Graham and Axel Bruns
timothy.graham@qut.edu.au / a.bruns@qut.edu.au

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https://research.qut.edu.au/dmrc/

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I. Origins and Early Spread
II. Dissemination and Popularisation
III. Preliminary Observations
Structure

(https://www.thesaturdaypaper.com.au/
news/politics/2020/03/28/fighting-the-
infodemic/15853140009611)

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Click to edit
Master title style
Conspiracy Theory:
COVID-19 as Bioweapon
I. Origins and
Early Spread

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(https://amp.theaustralian.com.au/business/the-wall-street-
journal/coronavirus-all-evidence-point-to-wuhan-labs-as-source-of-
infection/news-story/70d9aa9d5c18d348f4973bd1b15c535b)

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Data and Methods
• 8.5 million #coronavirus tweets
• 21/1/2020 to 28/1/2020; late January 2020
• Filtering data to examine six conspiracy theories and
hoaxes
• Coordinated amplification of retweets;
‘co-retweeting’
• By co-retweeting the exact same third party
message, astroturfing campaigns can boost the
number of messages that fit their campaign goals
(Keller et al., 2019: 260)
• Cluster analysis of the bioweapon conspiracy
co-retweet network
Full co-retweet network of the bioweapon conspiracy
(nodes are Twitter accounts sized by degree)

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Coordinated retweeting of conspiracy
theories / hoaxes during late January 2020
Beard removal
as
precautionary
measure
Pope
Francis
testing
positive for
coronavirus
Coronavirus
caused by
5G
Home remedies for
preventing and/or
curing coronavirus
Bill Gates is
sponsoring the
coronavirus
Coronavirus
bioweapon
1 2 8 241 5,740 11,213
Table 1 - Co-retweet frequency by conspiracy theory / hoax during late January 2020

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Bioweapon conspiracy clusters
Co-retweet subnetwork of the bioweapon conspiracy, showing the top
10 community clusters by number of nodes (nodes are Twitter accounts
sized by PageRank; nodes are coloured by community cluster).
Group identity Communities Total number of
accounts
(and % of total)
QAnon / pro-Trump #1, #5, #6, #7, #9 452 (50%)
Alt-right gamers #4 81 (9%)
China as rival #2, #8 194 (21%)
Conservative Indians #3, #10 177 (20%)

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Twitter profile of a leading pro-MAGA/QAnon
account retweeting the bioweapon conspiracy
Twitter profile of US Senator Jim Banks; 2,342
co-retweets of his tweet promoting the conspiracy

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Key takeaways
• We estimate that co-retweets of the bioweapon
conspiracy were viewed by about 1.6 million
people (i.e. ‘impressions’)
• Predominantly right-wing accounts from the US
and India coordinated to amplify it
• Vital role of popular accounts on Twitter who
relied on disinformation in fringe right-wing news
outlets and blogs
• These early disinformation operations
were ultimately successful

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Master title style
Conspiracy Theory:
5G and COVID-19
II. Dissemination
and Popularisation

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Data and Methods
• Triangulation between datasets:
• GDELT: global open-access dataset of news articles from mainstream, niche, and
questionable sources
• FakeNIX: QUT DMRC dataset of tweets sharing links to suspected ‘fake news’ sites
• CrowdTangle: global proprietary dataset of Facebook posts by major public pages, groups,
and verified profiles
• Preliminary analysis:
• Forensic retracing of the origins of the 5G / COVID-19 conspiracy theory
• Identification of key inflection and amplification points

(Source: GDELT, https://www.gdeltproject.org/)

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(Source: GDELT, https://www.gdeltproject.org/)

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(Source: QUT DMRC FakeNIX dataset, tracking tweets linking to suspected ‘fake news’ sites)

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(Source: data provided by CrowdTangle)

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(Source: data provided by CrowdTangle)

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Master title styleIII. Preliminary
Observations

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Key Takeaways So Far
• Social media and the COVID-19 infodemic:
• Conspiracy emergence parallels virus outbreak since mid-January 2020
• This seeds subsequent activity (especially on the right fringe)
• Some evidence of coordinated inauthentic behaviour on both Facebook and Twitter
• Notable content take-downs (on YouTube, Facebook, and Twitter), but much remains
• Conspiracy theories and the media:
• Substantial spread begins only once mainstream media amplify conspiracies
• Tabloid media serve as amplifiers, reaching audiences beyond the conspiratorial fringe
• Celebrity and politician endorsements provide further extension and amplification
• Fringe media outlets report mainstream coverage as endorsement of their earlier stories
• State propaganda outlets exploit confusion in further reporting

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Further Outlook
• Mainstream media and politics:
• Tabloid media recklessly exploit conspiracy theories as clickbait
• Difficult balance: reporting about conspiracies can be necessary, but provides more oxygen
• Media coverage and political discussion of conspiracies can lead to significant offline consequences
• This includes physical damage and personal harm
• Social media platforms:
• Take-downs and content warnings do have an effect, but users route around them
• Strong state intervention can be counterproductive as it supports conspiracy views
• Social media users:
• Substantial need to develop critical media literacies and consider consequences of sharing
• Heavy-handed rule enforcement only a last resort: substantial collateral damage
• Research:
• Substantial need for greater and more timely data access across platforms
• Urgent need for national research infrastructure to capture, store, and process large datasets

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This research is funded in part by the Centre for Responsible Technology,
and by the Australian Research Council projects DP200101317 Evaluating
the Challenge of ‘Fake News’ and Other Malinformation and FT130100703
Understanding Intermedia Information Flows in the Australian Online Public
Sphere.
Facebook data are provided courtesy of CrowdTangle.
Acknowledgments