Evidence map›Paper›PMID 36466588›Full record

ArticleComputational and mathematical organization theory2022

Vaccination trials on hold: malicious and low credibility content on Twitter during the AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccine development.

Sameera Horawalavithana, Ravindu De Silva, Nipuna Weerasekara, N G Kin Wai, Mohamed Nabeel, Buddhini Abayaratna, Charitha Elvitigala, Primal Wijesekera, Adriana Iamnitchi

Open access · bronzeAbstract read
In one paragraph

Article in Computational and mathematical organization theory, 2022. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 3 papers.

0numbers the graph read from it
0cells of the map it votes in
3citing papers in PubMed
2.8field-weighted citation impact, top 8% of its field
1 · What the graph read from 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.

2 · The registry

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.

3 · Its place in the literature

Who cites it

3 citing papers in PubMed, 8 citations in OpenAlex.

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4 · The record

Corrections and comments

PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.

5 · Who and what money

Authors and funding

9 authors at 4 institutions in 3 countries.

Sameera HorawalavithanaCSE, University of South Florida, Tampa, USA.ORCID 0000-0002-0327-3819
Ravindu De SilvaSCoRe Lab, Colombo, Sri Lanka.
Nipuna WeerasekaraSCoRe Lab, Colombo, Sri Lanka.
N G Kin WaiCSE, University of South Florida, Tampa, USA.
Mohamed NabeelQatar Computing Research Institute, Ar Rayyān, Qatar.
Buddhini AbayaratnaSCoRe Lab, Colombo, Sri Lanka.
Charitha ElvitigalaSCoRe Lab, Colombo, Sri Lanka.
Primal WijesekeraICSI, University of California, Berkeley, Berkeley, USA.
Adriana IamnitchiInstitute of Data Science, Maastricht University, Maastricht, Netherlands.
University of Colombo · LKUniversity of South Florida · USInternational Computer Science Institute · USMaastricht University · NL

Funding

No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.

6 · The paper itself

Abstract

The development of COVID-19 vaccines during the global pandemic that started in 2020 was marked by uncertainty and misinformation reflected also on social media. This paper provides a quantitative evaluation of the Uniform Resource Locators (URLs) shared on Twitter around the clinical trials of the AstraZeneca vaccine and their temporary interruption in September 2020. We analyzed URLs cited in Twitter messages before and after the temporary interruption of the vaccine development on September 9, 2020 to investigate the presence of low credibility and malicious information. We show that the halt of the AstraZeneca clinical trials prompted tweets that cast doubt, fear and vaccine opposition. We discovered a strong presence of URLs from low credibility or malicious websites, as classified by independent fact-checking organizations or identified by web hosting infrastructure features. Moreover, we identified what appears to be coordinated operations to artificially promote some of these URLs hosted on malicious websites.

Indexed as

AstraZeneca vaccineCoordinated URL promotionMisinformation

Identifiers

PMID36466588
PMCPMC9703426
OpenAlexW4310170818

What OpenQuestion holds

Textmetadata
Read underepoch 390

Registered trials

None linked

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.