Previously submitted to: JMIR Infodemiology (no longer under consideration since Oct 14, 2025)
Date Submitted: Mar 6, 2025
Warning: This is an author submission that is not peer-reviewed or edited. Preprints - unless they show as "accepted" - should not be relied on to guide clinical practice or health-related behavior and should not be reported in news media as established information.
The spread of fact-checks and the myths they debunk on Twitter: A case study of the graphene oxide myth during the COVID-19 pandemic
ABSTRACT
Background:
COVID-19 was the first large-scale global pandemic coinciding with widespread use of social media. On social media platforms, misinformation, including vaccine conspiracy theories, is common and spreads further and faster than facts. Several interventions attempt to combat misinformation. Among these strategies, third-party fact-checking debunks misinformation via independently published articles and has the potential to address misinformation diffusion, awareness, and beliefs. During the COVID-19 pandemic, fact-checks increased; however, fact-checking organizations were only mentioned in 6% of responses to misinformation on Twitter (now X), Facebook, and YouTube. Improved dissemination is key to the success of this strategy.
Objective:
We measured and examined the spread of a myth about graphene oxide in COVID-19 vaccines and its fact-checks on Twitter to answer the following questions: What is the volume of fact-checks and misinformation? Which fact-checks and misinformation spread the furthest? What is the structure of the network that formed around tweets and retweets of fact-checks and misinformation? Who is influential in the network?
Methods:
We used descriptive statistics and data visualization to examine the distribution of tweets, retweets, and quote tweets over time. We developed network graphs and statistics to identify network structures to better understand the spread of misinformation and fact-checks.
Results:
There were far more misinformation tweets, retweets, and quote tweets and more Twitter users posting misinformation than fact-checks. However, fact-check tweets spread the furthest through retweets and quote tweets compared to misinformation tweets.
Conclusions:
While misinformation overwhelmed by volume and number of accounts involved, individual fact-checks spread further. This suggests the potential to improve the dissemination of fact-checking by posting more fact-checks and engaging more Twitter accounts in retweeting or quote tweeting fact-checking posts. Clinical Trial: NA
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