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Tweets about “plandemic” (e.g., #plandemic)—the notion that the COVID-19 pandemic was planned or fraudulent—helped to spread several distinct conspiracy theories related to COVID-19. But the term’s catchy nature attracted attention from anti-vaccine activist filmmakers who ultimately created Plandemic the 26-minute documentary.

We investigate the diffusion of conspiracy theories related to the origin of COVID-19 on social media. By analyzing third-party content on four social media platforms, we show that: (a) In contrast to conventional wisdom, mainstream sources contribute overall more to conspiracy theories diffusion than alternative and other sources; and (b) platforms’ content moderation practices are able to mitigate the spread of conspiracy theories.

Misinformation, like terrorism, thrives where trust in conventional authorities has eroded. An informed policy response must therefore complement efforts to repress misinformation with efforts to redress loss of trust. At present, however, we are repeating the mistakes of the war on terror, prioritizing repressive, technologically deterministic solutions while failing to redress the root sociopolitical grievances that cultivate our receptivity to misinformation in the first place.

This paper is a qualitative ethnographic study of how a group of meme factories in Singapore and Malaysia have adapted their content programming and social media practices in light of COVID-19. It considers how they have fostered, countered, or challenged the rise and spread of misinformation in both countries.

A content analysis of popular videos on YouTube containing tobacco-relevant material revealed five categories of misleading content about tobacco use in 2013. A re-examination in 2019 of the most heavily viewed exemplars of these categories identified in 2013 revealed a striking increase in viewership in all categories but especially in the portrayal and promotion of vaping.

Surveys of nearly 2,500 Americans, conducted during a measles outbreak, suggest that users of traditional media are less likely to be misinformed about vaccines than social media users. Results also suggest that an individual’s level of trust in medical experts affects the likelihood that a person’s beliefs about vaccination will change. 

The governance of online platforms has unfolded across three eras – the era of Rights (which stretched from the early 1990s to about 2010), the era of Public Health (from 2010 through the present), and the era of Process (of which we are now seeing the first stirrings).