Communicating Misinformation About COVID-19 on Social Media

Importance  

Approximately one-third of the more than 1,100,000 COVID-19-related deaths confirmed as of January 18, 2023 were considered preventable if public health recommendations had been followed. The spread of misinformation about COVID-19 by physicians on social media and other Internet-based platforms has raised professional, public health, and ethical concerns.

Aim  

To characterize (1) the types of COVID-19 misinformation spread by US doctors after vaccines became available, (2) the online platforms used, and (3) the characteristics of the doctors spreading the misinformation.

Design, environment and participants  

Using US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention guidelines for the prevention and treatment of COVID-19 infection during the study window to define misinformation, structured searches of social media platforms high-use (Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, Parler, and YouTube) and news sources (The New York Times, National Public Radio) to identify misinformation about COVID-19 reported by US doctors between January 2021 and December 2022.

Physicians’ licensure status and medical specialty were identified. The number of followers of each doctor on 4 main platforms was extracted to estimate reach and a qualitative content analysis of the messages was performed.

Main results and measures  

Outcome measures included categories of COVID-19 misinformation spread, the number and characteristics of physicians involved in spreading misinformation, and the type of online media channels used to spread misinformation and reach. potential.

Results  

The spread of misinformation about COVID-19 was attributed to 52 doctors from 28 different specialties in all regions of the country.

General categories of misinformation included vaccines, medications, masks, and others (i.e., conspiracy theories).

Forty-two doctors (80.8%) posted vaccine misinformation, 40 (76.9%) spread information in more than 1 category, and 20 (38.5%) posted misinformation on 5 or more platforms.

The main themes identified included (1) questioning the safety and effectiveness of vaccines, (2) promoting medical treatments that lack scientific evidence and/or US Food and Drug Administration approval, e.g. origin of the virus , government lies and other conspiracy theories).

Table : Reach of doctors by number of followers

Conclusions and relevance  

In this mixed methods study of the spread of COVID-19 misinformation by US doctors on social media, results suggest widespread, inaccurate, and potentially harmful claims made by doctors across the country representing a variety of subspecialties. .

More research is needed to evaluate the extent of potential harms associated with the spread of misinformation by physicians, the motivations for these behaviors, and potential legal and professional remedies to improve accountability for the spread of misinformation.

Discussion

This study was the first, to our knowledge, to identify the types of misinformation about COVID-19 spread by US doctors on social media and the platforms they used, as well as to characterize the doctors who spread the misinformation. wrong information. The content of the misinformation spread by doctors was similar to the misinformation spread by others; This study provides new information about the range of specialties and regions of the country represented by physicians. The wide variety of social media followers for each physician suggested that the impact of any individual physician’s social media posts may also vary.

Some of the doctors identified belonged to organizations that have been spreading medical misinformation for decades, but these organizations became more visible in the context of the public health crisis, political division, and social isolation of the pandemic. Understanding the motivation for the spread of misinformation is beyond the scope of this study, but it has become an increasingly profitable industry within and outside of medicine. For example, America’s Frontline Doctors implemented a telemedicine service that charged $90 per visit, primarily to prescribe hydroxychloroquine and ivermectin for COVID-19 to patients across the country, generating at least $15 million in profit from the effort.

Twitter’s removal of safeguards against misinformation and the absence of federal laws regulating medical misinformation on social media platforms suggests that misinformation about COVID-19 and other medical misinformation is likely to persist and increase. Deregulation of COVID-19 misinformation on social media platforms may have far-reaching implications because consumers may have difficulty evaluating the accuracy of claims made.

National physician organizations, such as the American Medical Association, have called for disciplinary action for doctors who spread misinformation about COVID-19, but it can be challenging to prevent doctors from spreading misinformation about COVID-19 outside of clinical encounters. the patient. Although professional speech may be regulated by the courts and the FDA has been asked to address medical misinformation, few doctors appear to have faced disciplinary action. Factors such as licensing boards’ lack of available resources to devote to Internet monitoring and state government officials’ challenges to medical boards’ authority to discipline doctors who spread misinformation may limit action.

Scientific evidence depends on a body of accumulated research to inform practice and guidelines, and evidence depends on the best quality research available at a given time. A recent Cochrane review has been misinterpreted to definitively show that wearing masks does not reduce the transmission of respiratory viruses and has been used to support claims that masks definitely “don’t work.” Although the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the Department of Energy presented a theory to Congress that the COVID-19 virus was the result of a laboratory leak, scientific evidence and a more recent report from the Office of the Director of National Intelligence demonstrate the lack of evidence of a laboratory leak and favor a zoonotic origin of the virus . These recent challenges to previous understandings illustrate the importance of transparency and reproducibility of the process by which conclusions are drawn.