Celebrity tweets likely spread COVID-19 disinformation: study

By James Gamble via SWNS

Tweets from celebrities including Eric Clapton, Nicki Minaj, Novak Djokovic and Donald Trump are likely to have spread COVID-19 fake news, a new study revealed.

Research into the influence of Twitter accounts of famous faces found messages from politicians and news anchors received the most attention - and may well have swayed public opinion on vaccinations.

Anti-vax disinformation was spread through the social media accounts of many famous names, who fell for dangerous conspiracy theories about the jabs, scientists said.

The study, from the University of Tennessee Health Science Center (UTHSC), analyzed thousands of tweets from public figures and estimated their exertion of influence.

Researchers concluded misinformation spread by these "societal elites" surrounding vaccination programs was likely to have had a strong level of influence on those who read it.

It is hoped the new data could help bolster public health messaging and counter misinformation in the future.

The UTHSC researchers first looked at 13 million posts between January 2020 and March 2022, with each tweet's sentiment having been calculated by a language processing model.

These were then compared alongside tweets which specifically mentioned COVID-19 and certain US vaccine sceptics in the public eye.

They included American football star Aaron Rodgers, 39, and the world's number one ranked men's tennis player Novak Djokovic, 35, as well as British guitar god Eric Clapton, 77, and rap star Nicki Minaj, 40.

Tweets from former president Donald Trump, 76, and Republican senators Ted Cruz, 52, and Rand Paul, 60, were also put under a microscope, along with posts from podcaster Joe Rogan, 55, Fox News anchor Tucker Carlson, 53, the late radio host Phil Valentine - who died at 61 in the summer of 2021 - and controversial political commentator Candace Owens, 33.

The final analysis was based on 45,255 tweets from 34,407 authors.

Collectively, these tweets had 16.32 million likes - with a maximum of 70,228 each, researchers found.

The UTHSC team's analysis showed that, although there were minor differences between the various groups of vaccine skeptics in the public eye, a broadly negative view emerged.

Researchers said this negative, emotional content on COVID-19 vaccination shared by celebrities during the first two years of the pandemic had a substantial influence on public opinion and fueled online public debate.

Tweets from politicians were unsurprisingly found to have had the most influence, scientists said.

Dr. Arash Shaban-Nejad, one of the lead authors of the research, said: "The spread, reaction and engagement by the public to posts made by politicians online was indicative of a strong level of influence; suggesting politicians play key roles in ensuring population health and should be committed to promoting health-protective behaviors rather than sensational falsehoods."

Another influential group proved to be news anchors, whose posts clocked up a total of 14,017 likes between them.

Researchers found that, though their sentiments often differed, tweets from news anchors about Covid vaccinations tended towards the negative rather than the positive.

Additionally, tweets referencing these media personalities tended to be associated with anti-vaccine controversy and death, rather than new developments in vaccine programs, scientists said.

Shaban-Nejad added: "The high number of likes displayed within these tweets shows that a much higher number of users are involved in reading tweets, and are therefore potentially influenced by the content."

The researchers hope their study can be used to help stop the spread of misinformation in future crises.

Shaban-Nejad said: "As we have demonstrated, messaging shared by influential members of society can have considerable effects on the directionality of public emotion and shared health decision-making.

"Both negative and positive online social endorsement of prevention strategies such as vaccination are key in determining population-wide compliance and uptake success.

“However, threats of the spread of misinformation and disinformation by those with influence stand to undermine programs supporting protective measures such as vaccination.”

“As the pandemic progressed, public sentiment shared on social networks was shaped by risk perceptions, political ideologies and health-protective behaviors shared by people in the public eye.

“The risk of severe negative health outcomes increases with failure to comply with health-protective behavior recommendations set forth by public health officials, such as vaccination and our findings suggest that polarized messages from societal elites may downplay these risks - unduly contributing to an increase in the spread of COVID-19.”

The research team also suggested public health bodies work with those in the public eye in the future, in order to share more positive messaging about vaccination.

The study was published in the journal BMJ Health & Care Informatics.