Keynote by Axel Bruns, with Edward Hurcombe and Stephen Harrington, presented at the International Center for Journalists' Empowering the Truth Summit, 23 Feb. 2023.

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The Anatomy of Virality:
How COVID-19 Conspiracy Theories
Spread across Social and Mainstream Media
Axel Bruns, with Edward Hurcombe and Stephen Harrington
a.bruns@qut.edu.au | @snurb_dot_info
QUT Digital Media Research Centre
Brisbane, Australia

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Infodemic
(https://www.un.org/en/un-coronavirus-communications-team/un-tackling-
%E2%80%98infodemic%E2%80%99-misinformation-and-cybercrime-covid-19)

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(https://www.facebook.com/wizkhalifa/posts/10157971300941142 )
(https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/10/technology/coronavirus-5g-uk.html)
(https://www.communications.gov.au/departmental-news/5g-misinformation-and-covid-19)
(https://www.un.org/en/un-coronavirus-communications-team/un-tackling-
%E2%80%98infodemic%E2%80%99-misinformation-and-cybercrime-covid-19)
(https://twitter.com/debritz/status/1266574996383531008)
(https://www.centreforresponsibletechnology.org.au/pro_trump_accounts_coordinated_spre
ad_of_china_bio_weapon_covid_conspiracy_theory)

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Questions
• What claims are circulating?
• Who is spreading mis- and disinformation?
• How do the media engage with these claims?
• Are take-downs effective in reducing the dissemination of problematic content?
• Should official actors respond – and if so, how and when should they do so?

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Approach
• Facebook:
• Search for (covid,corona,virus,epidemi,pandemi) AND (5g) via CrowdTangle
• Timeframe: 1 Jan. 2020 to 12 Apr. 2020 (i.e. after the arson attacks in the UK and elsewhere)
• Limitations: only public pages, groups, verified profiles (for short, spaces); availability and use of Facebook differs
across countries; Latin alphabet; divergent local terms for the virus (e.g. koronawirus)
• 89,664 Posts, including false positives
• Media reporting:
• Search for (?i)(corona|virus|covid|epidem|pandem|wuhan|hubei) AND (?i)b(5g|fiveg|5-g|five-g)b via GDELT
• Timeframe: 1 Jan. 2020 to 12 Apr. 2020
• Limitations: only article titles and URLs; GDELT coverage; Latin alphabet; divergent local terms
• 2,812 articles, manually reviewed and coded  1,871 true positives

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Click to edit
Master title style
Analysis

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Detailed Results
• Facebook:
• Bruns, A., Harrington, S., & Hurcombe, E. (2020). ‘Corona? 5G? Or Both?’: The Dynamics of COVID-19/5G
Conspiracy Theories on Facebook. Media International Australia, 177(1), 12-29.
https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/1329878X20946113
• Media coverage:
• Bruns, A., Hurcombe, E., & Harrington, S. (2021). Covering Conspiracy: Approaches to Reporting the
COVID/5G Conspiracy Theory.” Digital Journalism. https://doi.org/10.1080/21670811.2021.1968921.
• Combined analysis:
• Bruns, A., Hurcombe, E., & Harrington, S. (2021). Coronavirus Conspiracy Theories: Tracing Misinformation
Trajectories from the Fringes to the Mainstream. In Communicating COVID-19: Interdisciplinary
Perspectives, eds. Monique Lewis, Kate Holland, and Eliza Govender. London: Palgrave.

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Phase 1: Prelude
• Generic conspiracy theories (1 to 26 Jan. 2020):
• Pre-existing claims about 5G
• Vague warnings about coming pandemics, not clearly
related to COVID-19
• Overlaps with other theories (vaccines, world
government, chemtrails, …)
• First explicit COVID/5G link claimed by French blog (20
Jan.): Wuhan as test region for Chinese 5G rollout
• Limited reach: Facebook spaces with <100,000
followers
• Media coverage: practically non-existent even in fringe
news sites

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Phase 2: The Wuhan-5G Connection Spreads
• Multilingual spread (27 Jan. to 24 Feb. 2020):
• From French anti-5G blog to German alternative medicine site
• English-language version (translation?) in K-Pop fan forum
• Further embellishments in English-language conspiracy pages and
sites: virus manufactured in Wuhan lab and activated by 5G, …
• Possible link to UK permission for Huawei to help build British 5G
network – and US criticism (27 Jan. 2020)
• Slowly growing reach: ~10% of spaces with 100k to 1m followers
• Media coverage: see phase 3

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Phase 3: Localisation and Embellishment
• Substantial diversification (25 Feb. to 11 Mar. 2020):
• Depopulation theories (feat. George Soros, Bill Gates, UN, Illuminati, Antichrist, ...)
• Alternative medicine theories (5G reduces oxygen absorption, ...)
• Virus denialism (COVID-19 does not exist, 5G is the sole cause of illness, ...)
• Adjustment of pre-existing conspiracy theories to new pandemic situation
• Multilingual spread: Romania, Czech Republic, Croatia, Italy, Spain, France, …
• Partial alignment with national lockdowns: more time for doomscrolling?
• Little change in reach: still ~70% of spaces with <10,000 followers
• Media coverage (phases 2+3): dominated by fringe US outlets
• 43 articles only, including 10 fact-check articles from technology / business news sites

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• Growing media interest (12 to 28 Mar. 2020):
• Celebrities spreading conspiracy theories (e.g. R&B singer Keri Hilson, 16 Mar.)
• Entertainment and tabloid media adopt humorous and incredulous, but uncritical tone
• Celebrities delete conspiracy posts, but celebrity reporting continues to circulate
• Spread especially in Africa and Southeast Asia
• Amplification for prominent conspiracy theorists (including politicians and journalists)
• Growing number of spaces with >10,000 followers (up to 40%)
• Media coverage: 98 articles, substantial number of entertainment and lifestyle outlets
• Majority of articles contain direct quotes of conspiracists or of celebrities’ social media posts
• But also growth in fact-checking articles
Phase 4: Celebrity Superspreaders

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Amplification and Permanence
• Impacts:
• Celebrity makes post, gets criticised, deletes post: a temporary problem
• Celebrity media report post, embed post – or include screenshot: a permanent problem

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• Evangelists, celebrities, arsonists (29 Mar. to 12 Apr. 2020):
• Apocalyptic French-language post in Africa and France (29 Mar., ~28.8m followers) + English versions
• Similar content in sermon by Nigerian evangelical pastor: Africa, South Korea, PNG (4 Apr., ~43.6m)
• Long African post containing collection of conspiracy theories says “Fire destroys all.” (30 Mar.)
• Spread in southern Africa, later also in UK anti-5G spaces (~7.8m)
• Whistleblower video from ‘former Vodafone UK executive’, later revealed to be evangelical
Zimbabwean pastor based in Luton (2 Apr., ~18m)
• UK boxer Amir Khan posts conspiracy video: Give Me Sport page (5 Apr., ~25.7m); Express news site
• Up to 60% of posts in spaces with >10,000 followers
• More than 60 arson attacks against 5G installations and technicians since early April (UK, later NL, …)
• Media coverage: 1,729 articles (92% of our dataset) – 35% on arson attacks, 23% on spread of
conspiracy theories, 11% on government responses, 11% on celebrity conspiracy claims
• Reduction in direct quoting of conspiracists (76% of articles are plain news reports)
Phase 5: Combustion Point
They are using the shutdown to build or put in mobile
incinerators and morgues to take all the 5G victims. When
people start dying in masses from 5G they will call it
corona virus.
All these technologies need to be destroyed to melt, so
they can't keep radiating us. We need to clip all wires and
then burn it all in massive bonfires. Fire destroys all.

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The Soft Underbelly
of the News Industry

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Precarious Clickworkers or Bad-Faith Actors?
• Tabloid and celebrity media content:
• Clickbait as a business model
• Sensationalist, controversial, sticky content
• Stupid celebrities as the perfect content fodder
• Tabloid and celebrity media staff:
• Precarious, pay-by-the-click freelance positions
• Poorly trained journalistic staff
• Very limited adherence to journalistic standards
• Encouraged to ‘glean’ content from elsewhere
https://www.searchenginejournal.com/12-surprising-examples-of-clickbait-headlines-that-work/362688/

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Irresponsible
Journalism

22. 🤔

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What Now?
• What can change?
• Celebrities will continue to do and say stupid things
• Celebrity news sites and tabloids will continue to cover them
• Fans will continue to be fans
• Incremental change:
• Embeds, not screenshots
• Reporting, not embeds
• Critical reporting and fact-checking, not just stenography
• Better journalistic training even for entertainment reporters
• Better visibility for fact-checking and debunking in the same media
• Better enforcement of press standards on misinformation and plagiarism

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Conclusions

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But.
Due Credit:
https://datasociety.net/library/oxygen-of-amplification/

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It’s the Celebrities.

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Observations and Recommendations
• Key takeaways:
• The immediate impact of conspiracist sites is limited
• Hardcore conspiracy theorists are a problem in themselves, but have limited influence
• Celebrities can become superspreaders
• Their amplification inserts mis- and disinformation into more general conversations
• ‘Soft’ newsbeats are journalism’s weak spot
• Journalistic ethos less well developed – need to reflect on impact and act more responsibly
• Take-downs can delay dissemination – especially amongst ordinary users
• Communicative distance between mainstream and fringe groups is critically important –
need to avoid news coverage that undermines take-downs by creating more persistent copies
• The right time to respond to mis- and disinformation is… when?
• Earlier than in the case of 5G conspiracy theories, but not so early that it aids dissemination –
need to respond in ways that reach the same audiences: including in celebrity / tabloid media

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An Analogy?
• Dealing with viral mis- and disinformation:
• Take-downs, deplatforming, digital literacy ≈ lockdowns, quarantine, mask mandates:
it slows the spread of problematic information to vulnerable communities,
but does not solve the underlying problem itself.
• Deradicalisation ≈ vaccination:
it starves the viral event of potential carriers and superspreaders,
but it is efficient only if the vast majority of the population are protected from infection.
• Public information campaigns = public information campaigns:
in either case, clear and accurate information from public officials and other stakeholders
is crucial in ensuring community trust in these physical / informational health measures.

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This research is funded in part 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, and supported by the
Australian Research Council Centre of Excellence for Automated Decision-
Making and Society.
Facebook data are provided courtesy of CrowdTangle.
Acknowledgments