Mainstreaming of conspiracy theories and misinformation
N.F. Johnson, N. Velasquez, N. Johnson Restrepo, R. Leahy, R. Sear, N., Gabriel, H. Larson, Y. Lupu

TL;DR
This paper investigates how online community bonds during the pandemic have facilitated the spread of conspiracy theories among parents, revealing why current policies fail and proposing a mathematical model for effective intervention.
Contribution
It introduces a mathematically grounded model showing how community interactions sustain misinformation and suggests targeted strategies to prevent conspiracy theory mainstreaming.
Findings
Community bonds increased during the pandemic, aiding conspiracy spread.
Alternative health communities act as conduits for misinformation.
Modest adjustments in community interactions can prevent misinformation tipping.
Abstract
Parents - particularly moms - increasingly consult social media for support when taking decisions about their young children, and likely also when advising other family members such as elderly relatives. Minimizing malignant online influences is therefore crucial to securing their assent for policies ranging from vaccinations, masks and social distancing against the pandemic, to household best practices against climate change, to acceptance of future 5G towers nearby. Here we show how a strengthening of bonds across online communities during the pandemic, has led to non-Covid-19 conspiracy theories (e.g. fluoride, chemtrails, 5G) attaining heightened access to mainstream parent communities. Alternative health communities act as the critical conduits between conspiracy theorists and parents, and make the narratives more palatable to the latter. We demonstrate experimentally that these…
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Taxonomy
TopicsMisinformation and Its Impacts · Social Media and Politics · Media Influence and Politics
