Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
. 2020 Oct 5;22(10):e22374.
doi: 10.2196/22374.

COVID-19 and the "Film Your Hospital" Conspiracy Theory: Social Network Analysis of Twitter Data

Wasim Ahmed  1 , Francesc López Seguí  2 , Josep Vidal-Alaball  3   4 , Matthew S Katz  5
Affiliations

COVID-19 and the "Film Your Hospital" Conspiracy Theory: Social Network Analysis of Twitter Data

Wasim Ahmed et al. J Med Internet Res. .

Abstract

Background: During the COVID-19 pandemic, a number of conspiracy theories have emerged. A popular theory posits that the pandemic is a hoax and suggests that certain hospitals are "empty." Research has shown that accepting conspiracy theories increases the likelihood that an individual may ignore government advice about social distancing and other public health interventions. Due to the possibility of a second wave and future pandemics, it is important to gain an understanding of the drivers of misinformation and strategies to mitigate it.

Objective: This study set out to evaluate the #FilmYourHospital conspiracy theory on Twitter, attempting to understand the drivers behind it. More specifically, the objectives were to determine which online sources of information were used as evidence to support the theory, the ratio of automated to organic accounts in the network, and what lessons can be learned to mitigate the spread of such a conspiracy theory in the future.

Methods: Twitter data related to the #FilmYourHospital hashtag were retrieved and analyzed using social network analysis across a 7-day period from April 13-20, 2020. The data set consisted of 22,785 tweets and 11,333 Twitter users. The Botometer tool was used to identify accounts with a higher probability of being bots.

Results: The most important drivers of the conspiracy theory are ordinary citizens; one of the most influential accounts is a Brexit supporter. We found that YouTube was the information source most linked to by users. The most retweeted post belonged to a verified Twitter user, indicating that the user may have had more influence on the platform. There was a small number of automated accounts (bots) and deleted accounts within the network.

Conclusions: Hashtags using and sharing conspiracy theories can be targeted in an effort to delegitimize content containing misinformation. Social media organizations need to bolster their efforts to label or remove content that contains misinformation. Public health authorities could enlist the assistance of influencers in spreading antinarrative content.

Keywords: COVID-19; Twitter; coronavirus; fake news; misinformation; public health; social media; social network analysis.

PubMed Disclaimer

Conflict of interest statement

Conflicts of Interest: None declared.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
Social network visualization of #FilmYourHospital.
Figure 2
Figure 2
Assessing the number of bots on a scale from 0 to 5 using Botometer.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

Similar articles

See all similar articles

Cited by

See all "Cited by" articles

References

    1. Wu F, Zhao S, Yu B, Chen Y, Wang W, Song Z, Hu Y, Tao Z, Tian J, Pei Y, Yuan M, Zhang Y, Dai F, Liu Y, Wang Q, Zheng J, Xu L, Holmes EC, Zhang Y. A new coronavirus associated with human respiratory disease in China. Nature. 2020 Feb 3;579(7798):265–269. doi: 10.1038/s41586-020-2008-3. - DOI - PMC - PubMed
    1. Sohrabi C, Alsafi Z, O'Neill N, Khan M, Kerwan A, Al-Jabir A, Iosifidis C, Agha R. Corrigendum to "World Health Organization declares Global Emergency: A review of the 2019 Novel Coronavirus (COVID-19)" [Int J Surg 76 (2020) 71-76] Int J Surg. 2020 May;77:217. doi: 10.1016/j.ijsu.2020.03.036. http://europepmc.org/abstract/MED/32305321 - DOI - PMC - PubMed
    1. Nicola M, Alsafi Z, Sohrabi C, Kerwan A, Al-Jabir A, Iosifidis C, Agha M, Agha R. The socio-economic implications of the coronavirus pandemic (COVID-19): A review. Int J Surg. 2020 Jun;78:185–193. doi: 10.1016/j.ijsu.2020.04.018. http://europepmc.org/abstract/MED/32305533 - DOI - PMC - PubMed
    1. Ahmed W, Vidal-Alaball J, Downing J, López Seguí F. COVID-19 and the 5G Conspiracy Theory: Social Network Analysis of Twitter Data. J Med Internet Res. 2020 May 06;22(5):e19458. doi: 10.2196/19458. https://www.jmir.org/2020/5/e19458/ - DOI - PMC - PubMed
    1. Salud Sin Bulos. [2020-05-18]. https://saludsinbulos.com/?s=covid.