Now Available: The Latest Edition of the “Coronavirus Misinformation Weekly Briefing” from the Oxford Internet Institute

From the Coronavirus Misinformation Weekly Briefing (via Computational Propaganda Project/OII):

Given the evolving nature of the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic—and public understanding of the crises—we provide a weekly briefing about the spread of coronavirus information across multiple social media platforms.

For the week leading up to 18-05-2020 we find:

• Of all the junk news that social media users engaged with last week, 33% of it came from state-backed news agencies, and 83% of engagement with state backed agencies involves media outlets from Russia and China.
• In total, articles produced by junk health news sources were engaged with four million times this week. On average, articles from state-backed media sources nonetheless stimulated the most engagement.
• Thematically, prominent junk health news narratives this week included (1) misinformation around German intelligence reports alleging the WHO withholding information on Chinese request, and (2) attacks on Democrats over the HEROES Act.

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