Misinformation, manipulation, and abuse on social media in the era of COVID-19
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Misinformation, manipulation, and abuse on social media in the era of COVID‑19 Emilio Ferrara1 · Stefano Cresci2 · Luca Luceri3 Received: 19 October 2020 / Accepted: 23 October 2020 © The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. part of Springer Nature 2020
Abstract The COVID-19 pandemic represented an unprecedented setting for the spread of online misinformation, manipulation, and abuse, with the potential to cause dramatic real-world consequences. The aim of this special issue was to collect contributions investigating issues such as the emergence of infodemics, misinformation, conspiracy theories, automation, and online harassment on the onset of the coronavirus outbreak. Articles in this collection adopt a diverse range of methods and techniques, and focus on the study of the narratives that fueled conspiracy theories, on the diffusion patterns of COVID-19 misinformation, on the global news sentiment, on hate speech and social bot interference, and on multimodal Chinese propaganda. The diversity of the methodological and scientific approaches undertaken in the aforementioned articles demonstrates the interdisciplinarity of these issues. In turn, these crucial endeavors might anticipate a growing trend of studies where diverse theories, models, and techniques will be combined to tackle the different aspects of online misinformation, manipulation, and abuse. Keywords Misinformation · Abuse · Social bots · Infodemics · Social media · COVID-19
* Emilio Ferrara [email protected] Stefano Cresci [email protected] Luca Luceri [email protected] 1
University of Southern California, Los Angeles, CA 90007, USA
2
Institute of Informatics and Telematics, National Research Council (IIT-CNR), 56124 Pisa, Italy
3
University of Applied Sciences and Arts of Southern Switzerland (SUPSI), Manno, Switzerland
13
Vol.:(0123456789)
Journal of Computational Social Science
Introduction Malicious and abusive behaviors on social media have elicited massive concerns for the negative repercussions that online activity can have on personal and collective life. The spread of false information [8, 14, 19] and propaganda [10], the rise of AI-manipulated multimedia [3], the presence of AI-powered automated accounts [9, 12], and the emergence of various forms of harmful content are just a few of the several perils that social media users can—even unconsciously— encounter in the online ecosystem. In times of crisis, these issues can only get more pressing, with increased threats for everyday social media users [20]. The ongoing COVID-19 pandemic makes no exception and, due to dramatically increased information needs, represents the ideal setting for the emergence of infodemics—situations characterized by the undisciplined spread of information, including a multitude of low-credibility, fake, misleading, and unverified information [24]. In addition, malicious actors thrive on these wild situations and aim to take advantage of the resulting chaos. In such high-stakes scenarios, the downstr
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