ArticleJournal of medical Internet research2021
Bots and Misinformation Spread on Social Media: Implications for COVID-19.
Article in Journal of medical Internet research, 2021. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 45 papers, 2 of them syntheses that pooled it.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
45 citing papers in PubMed, 2 syntheses or guidelines pooled it.
- Development of a Conceptual Framework of Health Misinformation During the COVID-19 Pandemic: Systematic Review of Reviews.JMIR public health and surveillance · 2025Pooled it
- Effects of SARS-CoV-2 Vaccines on Sperm Quality: Systematic Review.JMIR public health and surveillance · 2023Pooled it
- Scope and Prospects of Social Media for Patient Education and Engagement in Medical Practice.Cureus · 2026Review
- Including patient experiences from online sources in guidelines: A natural language processing study on scabies.PloS one · 2026Article
- Addressing Survey Fraud in Online Health Research: A Case Study of Latine Sexual Minority Men.Research in nursing & health · 2025Article
- Comparing Telemedicine and In-Person Psychological Interventions for Anxiety: A Systematic Review.Cureus · 2025Review
- A global comparison of social media bot and human characteristics.Scientific reports · 2025Article
- Social media and the spread of misinformation: infectious and a threat to public health.Health promotion international · 2025Article
- Transformer-Based Tool for Automated Fact-Checking of Online Health Information: Development Study.JMIR infodemiology · 2025Article
- Wellness Influencer Responses to COVID-19 Vaccines on Social Media: A Longitudinal Observational Study.Journal of medical Internet research · 2024Observational
- Mapping global public perspectives on mRNA vaccines and therapeutics.NPJ vaccines · 2024Article
- A new sociology of humans and machines.Nature human behaviour · 2024Review
- The spread of fake news: Disclosure willingness role.Heliyon · 2024Article
- Information processing style and institutional trust as factors of COVID vaccine hesitancy.Scientific reports · 2024Article
- Engaging communities in therapeutics clinical research during pandemics: Experiences and lessons from the ACTIV COVID-19 therapeutics research initiative.Journal of clinical and translational science · 2024Review
- Mapping automatic social media information disorder. The role of bots and AI in spreading misleading information in society.PloS one · 2024Article
- The psychological implications of COVID-19 over the eighteen-month time span following the virus breakout in Italy.Frontiers in psychology · 2024Article
- The role of social media literacy in infodemic management: a systematic review.Frontiers in digital health · 2024Review
- Automated Credibility Assessment of Web-Based Health Information Considering Health on the Net Foundation Code of Conduct (HONcode): Model Development and Validation Study.JMIR formative research · 2023Article
- The overturn of Roe v. Wade beyond abortion: a snapshot of methotrexate accessibility for people with rheumatic and musculoskeletal diseases-a mixed methods study using Twitter data.Rheumatology international · 2023Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
9 authors.
Funding
Abstract
As of March 2021, the SARS-CoV-2 virus has been responsible for over 115 million cases of COVID-19 worldwide, resulting in over 2.5 million deaths. As the virus spread exponentially, so did its media coverage, resulting in a proliferation of conflicting information on social media platforms-a so-called "infodemic." In this viewpoint, we survey past literature investigating the role of automated accounts, or "bots," in spreading such misinformation, drawing connections to the COVID-19 pandemic. We also review strategies used by bots to spread (mis)information and examine the potential origins of bots. We conclude by conducting and presenting a secondary analysis of data sets of known bots in which we find that up to 66% of bots are discussing COVID-19. The proliferation of COVID-19 (mis)information by bots, coupled with human susceptibility to believing and sharing misinformation, may well impact the course of the pandemic.
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What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.