Investigating Misinformation Dissemination on Social Media in Pakistan

TL;DR

This study compares misinformation spread on WhatsApp, Twitter, and YouTube in Pakistan, analyzing its characteristics, techniques, and user responses, highlighting its impact on politics, religion, and health during 2020.

Contribution

It is the first comprehensive comparison of misinformation across these platforms in Pakistan, focusing on content characteristics and dissemination techniques.

Findings

Fake news used emotional appeals, conspiracy theories, and impersonation.

Misinformation significantly influenced public opinion during 2020.

Platforms showed different patterns in misinformation spread.

Abstract

Fake news and misinformation are one of the most significant challenges brought about by advances in communication technologies. We chose to research the spread of fake news in Pakistan because of some unfortunate incidents that took place during 2020. These included the downplaying of the severity of the COVID-19 pandemic, and protests by right-wing political movements. We observed that fake news and misinformation contributed significantly to these events and especially affected low-literate and low-income populations. We conducted a cross-platform comparison of misinformation on WhatsApp, Twitter and YouTube with a primary focus on messages shared in public WhatsApp groups, and analysed the characteristics of misinformation, techniques used to make is believable, and how users respond to it. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first attempt to compare misinformation on all three platforms in Pakistan. Data collected over a span of eight months helped us identify fake news and misinformation related to politics, religion and health, among other categories. Common elements which were used by fake news creators in Pakistan to make false content seem believable included: appeals to emotion, conspiracy theories, political and religious polarization, incorrect facts and impersonation of credible sources.