Fake news is everywhere. We fight against the spread of fake news every day. A study now shows that there are similarities between the spread of fake news and infectious diseases such as COVID-19.
“An early reaction and response to conspiracy theories is essential to controlling their spread. Very early fact checking, especially in combination with moderate deletion of tweets, is the best strategy for curbing the spread of conspiracy theories.” This is the conclusion reached by Julian Kauk from the University of Jena in his new study on the spread of fake news. Details were published in “Plos One”.
The Jena researcher has shown that biological (COVID-19) and psychological infection processes can be described very well using the same mathematical models. According to the scientist's calculations, measures against the spread of fake news can influence the trajectory.
“5G coronavirus” myth
The expert transferred an epidemiological model for calculating the course of an infectious disease to a data set of a social phenomenon. The expert focused on Twitter and used targeted hashtags to retrospectively generate a data set on the “5G coronavirus” conspiracy theory, which has already died down.
The conspiracy theory states that the pandemic resulted from the expansion of the 5G data network. Although this conspiracy theory is not based on any scientific evidence, it spread rapidly across various social networks. Kauk transferred the epidemiological SIR model, which indicates the course of those susceptible, infected and those who have recovered from an infectious disease in a medical environment, to this data set.
Amazing similarities
In the case of fake news, the incidence indicates how many “new infections”, i.e. uses of the hashtag for the theory, take place per day. Based on this incidence and the resulting curve, the psychologist from Jena can determine how the number of people receptive to the conspiracy theory, those already “infected” with the theory and those who have already turned away from the theory changes. Compared to the course of the COVID-19 pandemic, he noticed a surprising similarity.
Source: press release
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