Social media use linked to Covid-19 conspiracies
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People who get their information about coronavirus from social media platforms are more likely to believe conspiracy theories, according to a new study.
In addition, those who are more reliant on sites such as Facebook and YouTube are more likely to have broken lockdown rules.
The findings are based on three separate surveys, and have been published in a peer-reviewed article by King’s College London academics in the leading journal Psychological Medicine.
The researchers tested seven statements about coronavirus, revealing the following levels of belief:
- 30% think coronavirus was probably created in a lab, up from 25% at the beginning of April
- 28% think most people in the UK have already had coronavirus without realising it
- 30% believe the Covid-19 death toll is being deliberately reduced or hidden by the authorities
- 14% believe the death toll is being deliberately exaggerated
- 13% believe that the current pandemic is part of a global effort to force everyone to be vaccinated
- 8% believe that the symptoms that most people blame on Covid-19 appear to be connected to 5G network radiation
- 7% believe there is no hard evidence that Covid-19 really exists
The peer-reviewed article finds a statistically significant link between believing in such conspiracy theories and using social media platforms such as Facebook and YouTube
- 60% of those who believe the virus is linked to 5G radiation get their information from YouTube, compared with 14% of those who think that’s false
- 56% of people who believe there’s no hard evidence Covid-19 exists use Facebook as a key information source, almost three times higher than the proportion of non-believers who do (20%)
- 45% of those who believe Covid-19 deaths are being exaggerated get a lot of their information from Facebook, more than twice the 19% of non-believers who say the same
The article also finds that people who have broken the lockdown rules are more likely to be getting their information on the virus from social media
In the latest and most comprehensive of the three surveys:
- 58% of those who have gone outside with Covid-19 symptoms use YouTube as a main information source, compared with 16% of those who haven’t
- 18% of those who have obeyed the 2-metre rule get a lot of their information from the video streaming site, in contrast to 42% among those who haven’t obeyed it
- 37% of people who have had friends or family visit them at home list Facebook as a key source, compared with 23% of those who haven’t
In addition, the article finds a statistically significant link between believing in conspiracy theories and breaking lockdown rules:
"The number of people reported as dying from coronavirus is being deliberately exaggerated by the authorities."
- 28% of those who believe this have had friends or family visit them at home – more than twice as many as the 12% of non-believers who have done the same.
- 18% of believers have gone to work or outside with coronavirus symptoms, almost four times more than the 5% of non-believers.
- 82% of believers have followed the 2-metre social distancing rule, compared with 95% among those who don’t believe this conspiracy.
"The symptoms that most people blame on coronavirus appear to be linked to 5G network radiation."
- 29% of people who believe this have gone out despite suspecting they may have coronavirus, compared with just 4% among those who reject this belief
- 33% of believers have had friends or family to visit them at home, which falls to one in eight (13%) among non-believers
- 83% of those who believe this conspiracy have followed the 2-metre rule, compared with 95% among those who do not believe it.
"There is no hard evidence that coronavirus really exists."
- 38% of believers have had others visit them, compared with just over one in 10 (12%) non-believers.
- 35% of believers have also gone out when they should have been self-quarantining, almost nine times higher than the 4% of non-believers who have done the same
- 72% of those who believe this conspiracy have complied with the 2-metre rule, 23 percentage points lower than the proportion of those who do not believe it (95%).
Dr Daniel Allington, Senior Lecturer in Social and Cultural Artificial Intelligence at King’s College London, said: "Our findings suggest that social media use is linked both to false beliefs about Covid-19 and to failure to follow the clear-cut rules of the lockdown.
"This is not surprising, given that so much of the information on social media is misleading or downright wrong.
"Now that some of the lockdown rules are being relaxed, people will have to make more and more of their own decisions about what is safe or unsafe – which means that access to good-quality information about Covid-19 will be more important than ever.
"It’s time for us to think about what action we can take to address this very real problem."
His colleague Professor Bobby Duffy, who's Director of the Policy Institute at King’s College, agreed.
He said: "Even the more extreme conspiracy theories around Covid-19 are thought to be true by a large section of the public.
"One in five people say they believe at least one from there being a link to 5G radiation, or that the pandemic is part of a global forced vaccination programme, or that there is no evidence the disease actually exists.
"This is important, as there are clear links between belief in conspiracies and both lower trust in government and less compliance with the guidelines set to control the disease.
"Both believing in conspiracies and breaking the lockdown rules are clearly linked to getting more of your information from social media.
"These sort of associations cannot prove that misinformation on social media platforms causes belief in conspiracies, lower trust and a greater likelihood of breaking the rules.
"However they point to a toxic mix between underlying beliefs and misleading information that can have real effects on how people behave, even during a pandemic."
The three surveys involved 2,254 interviews with UK residents aged 16-75.
They were carried out online between May 20 and 22.
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