The Process of Responding to COVID-19 Misinformation in a Social Media Feed

Abstract

Misinformation can undermine public health recommendations. Our team evaluated a 9-week social media campaign promoting COVID-19 prevention to mothers (n = 303) of teen daughters in January-March 2021. We implemented an epidemiological model for monitoring, diagnosing, and responding quickly to misinformation from mothers. Overall, 54 comments out of 1617 total comments (3.3%) from 20 mothers (6.6% of sample) contained misinformation. Misinformation was presented in direct statements and indirectly as hypothetical questions, source derogation, and personal stories, and attributed to others. Misinformation occurred most (n = 40; 74%) in comments on vaccination posts. The community manager responded to 48 (89%) misinformation comments by acknowledging the comment and rebutting misinformation. No mothers who provided misinformation left the Facebook groups and a few commented again (n = 10) or reacted (n = 3) to responses. Only a small number of comments conveyed misinformation. Our quick-response epidemiological protocol appeared to prevent debate and dropout and exposed these mothers to credible information.