This document discusses COVID-19 disinformation, why it matters, and how to get involved. It provides an overview of information disorder frameworks, the disinformation lifecycle, and defines the term "disinfodemic". Categories of disinformation responses and the 6 questions of misinformation analysis are presented. Examples of disinformation types and how, where, when, and who spreads it are examined. The document encourages participation in an EU hackathon to help classify COVID-19 disinformation data.

1. COVID-19 Disinformation:
Why it matters and why should you get involved
Kalina Bontcheva
K.Bontcheva@sheffield.ac.uk
Keynote talk @ HealTAC, 23 April 2020
1The WeVerify and SoBigData++ projects have received funding from the European Union's Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under grant agreements No 825297 and 871042

2. 2
Information disorder theoretical framework
(Wardle, 2017; Wardle & Derakshan, 2017)
Very difficult to distinguish
🡪 mainly between MIS-
and DISinformation
The WeVerify and SoBigData++ projects have received funding from the European Union's Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under grant agreements No 825297 and 871042

3. Disinformation lifecycle
3
Source: STOA report 2019
The WeVerify and SoBigData++ projects have received funding from the European Union's Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under grant agreements No 825297 and 871042

4. 4
https://en.unesco.org/covid19/disinfodemic
The WeVerify and SoBigData++ projects have received funding from the European Union's Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under grant agreements No 825297 and 871042

5. Why Disinfodemic?
The impact of the false content, irrespective of intentions, is potentially the
same
Thus we use term disinformation, as we focus on the damaging effects of
fabricated and misleading information, rather than the motivation for its
creation and dissemination
COVID-19 disinformation is more toxic and more deadly than disinformation
about other subjects -> we coined the term disinfodemic
5The WeVerify and SoBigData++ projects have received funding from the European Union's Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under grant agreements No 825297 and 871042

6. Categories of Disinformation Responses
6The WeVerify and SoBigData++ projects have received funding from the European Union's Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under grant agreements No 825297 and 871042

7. The 6 Questions of Misinformation Analysis
What is being spread?
Where it spreads?
How it spreads?
Who is spreading it?
Why it spreads?
When it spreads?
7The WeVerify and SoBigData++ projects have received funding from the European Union's Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under grant agreements No 825297 and 871042

8. The 6 Questions of Misinformation Analysis
What is being spread?
Where it spreads?
How it spreads?
Who is spreading it?
Why it spreads?
When it spreads?
8The WeVerify and SoBigData++ projects have received funding from the European Union's Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under grant agreements No 825297 and 871042

9. Examples
9The WeVerify and SoBigData++ projects have received funding from the European Union's Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under grant agreements No 825297 and 871042
There are 5 other types - please see the UNESCO Policy Brief

10. Examples
10The WeVerify and SoBigData++ projects have received funding from the European Union's Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under grant agreements No 825297 and 871042

11. The 6 Questions of Misinformation Analysis
What is being spread?
Where it spreads?
How it spreads?
Who is spreading it?
Why it spreads?
When it spreads?
11The WeVerify and SoBigData++ projects have received funding from the European Union's Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under grant agreements No 825297 and 871042

12. When it spreads?
12
Spike on 3 April 2020
IFCN COVID-19 fact-checks per day - statistics between 4 January and 13 April 2020
Data obtained from https://www.poynter.org/ifcn-covid-19-misinformation/
The WeVerify and SoBigData++ projects have received funding from the European Union's Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under grant agreements No 825297 and 871042

13. The 6 Questions of Misinformation Analysis
What is being spread?
Where it spreads?
How it spreads?
Who is spreading it?
Why it spreads?
When it spreads?
13The WeVerify and SoBigData++ projects have received funding from the European Union's Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under grant agreements No 825297 and 871042

14. 14
WeVerify project has received funding from the European Union's Horizon 2020 research and innovation
programme under grant agreement No 825297
print
& debunk
Source: https://medium.com/1st-draft/5-lessons-for-reporting-in-an-age-of-disinformation-9d98f0441722
The Trumpet of Amplification
The WeVerify and SoBigData++ projects have received funding from the European Union's Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under grant agreements No 825297 and 871042

15. Where it spreads?
15The WeVerify and SoBigData++ projects have received funding from the European Union's Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under grant agreements No 825297 and 871042

16. What languages/Where?
16The WeVerify and SoBigData++ projects have received funding from the European Union's Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under grant agreements No 825297 and 871042

17. The 6 Questions of Misinformation Analysis
What is being spread?
Where it spreads?
How it spreads?
Who is spreading it?
Why it spreads?
When it spreads?
17The WeVerify and SoBigData++ projects have received funding from the European Union's Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under grant agreements No 825297 and 871042

18. Fake Profile, Advertising and Clickbait
Fake Profiles
Advertising and Clickbait
• Online advertising used extensively to make money
• A clickbait post is designed to provoke emotional response in its readers
• Some measures by the platforms are in place, but not sufficient
18The WeVerify and SoBigData++ projects have received funding from the European Union's Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under grant agreements No 825297 and 871042

19. False Amplifiers: Bots
Bots that spread malware and unsolicited content
disseminated anti-vaccine messages
Russian trolls promoted discord
Accounts masquerading as legitimate users create false
equivalency, eroding public consensus on vaccination
19The WeVerify and SoBigData++ projects have received funding from the European Union's Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under grant agreements No 825297 and 871042

20. Genuine Amplifiers
The main amplifiers behind viral misinformation and propaganda are genuine human
users (Vosoughi et al, 2018)
Confirmation bias 🡪 spreading information that conforms to the individual’s views
Homophily
• Individual’s information sharing and commenting behaviour is influenced by the
behaviour of their online social connections
Polarisation
• “social networks and search engines are associated with an increase in the mean
ideological distance between individuals” (Flaxman et al, 2018)
20The WeVerify and SoBigData++ projects have received funding from the European Union's Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under grant agreements No 825297 and 871042

21. WeVerify project
21WeVerify project has received funding from the European Union's Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under grant agreement No 825297

22. 22
Credit: Denis Teyssou (AFP)
Facebook vs Twitter misinformation

23. 23
Multilingual Search
Credit: Denis Teyssou (AFP)

24. 24
Google getting confused
Credit: Denis Teyssou (AFP)

25. 25
Google getting confused
Credit: Denis Teyssou (AFP)
Database of
Known Fakes can
help!

26. Challenges
Scarcity of data, especially annotated data for training and evaluation
Several levels of veracity (a claim can be “half true”, “inaccurate”)
Ethical approval 🡪 social data is a kind of personal data
Requirements for data storage and usage
Difficulty to reach closed channels (e.g. WhatsApp)
26The WeVerify and SoBigData++ projects have received funding from the European Union's Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under grant agreements No 825297 and 871042

27. Can You Help This Weekend?
EUvsVirus Hackathon
Classifying COVID-19 disinformation into categories for training ML classifiers
Help by annotating data for 1 - 3hrs (or more :)
In return, data will be shared within 1-2 weeks for you to experiment
Please email me and X.Song@sheffield.ac.uk
27The WeVerify and SoBigData++ projects have received funding from the European Union's Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under grant agreements No 825297 and 871042

28. Thank you!
Kalina Bontcheva
K.Bontcheva@Sheffield.ac.uk
HealTAC, 23 Apr 2020
28The WeVerify and SoBigData++ projects have received funding from the European Union's Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under grant agreements No 825297 and 871042