Bots may be spreading misinformation about masks on Facebook

Embargoed until: Publicly released: 2021-06-08 01:00

International

A campaign that likely used bots promoted a mask-wearing study on Facebook groups to spread misinformation, say US researchers. The study looked at posts linking to the DANMASK-19 study, which found mask-wearing reduced infection risk by between 23 and 46 per cent, and not the 50 per cent the trial was designed to detect. The study found that there were 712 posts in 563 public Facebook groups that provided direct links to DANMASK-19. Of these, around 40 per cent of posts that linked to DANMASK-19 were in Facebook groups most affected by bots. Many of these posts made conspiratorial claims about the trial.

Media release

From: JAMA

Spread of Misinformation About Face Masks, COVID-19 by Automated Software on Facebook

What The Study Did: Researchers analyzed conversations on public Facebook groups to explore automated misinformation.

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Research JAMA, Web page Please link to the article in online versions of your report (the URL will go live after the embargo ends).

Journal/
conference: JAMA Internal Medicine

Research:Paper

Organisation/s: University of California, USA

Funder: This work was supported by the BurroughsWellcome Fund, National Institutes of Health grant AI036214, The John S. and James L. Knight Foundation to the GeorgeWashington University Institute for Data, Democracy, and Politics, and The John and Mary Tu Foundation. See paper for COIs

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