Wagamaga OP t1_jca7cac wrote
The COVID-19 pandemic was fertile ground for conspiracy theories and misinformation on Twitter, and Bill Gates was a frequent target. A new study, which analyzes well-known conspiracy theories about the role of Bill Gates during the pandemic is published in Cyberpsychology, Behavior, and Social Networking.
K. Hazel Kwon, Ph.D., from the Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication, Arizona State University, and co-authors analyzed 313,088 tweets surrounding Bill Gates over a nine-month period in 2020.
The investigators define conspiracy theories as "explanatory narratives about the ultimate causes of significant social and political events, with claims of secret plots by powerful actors."
The findings showed that each conspiracy theory is not an isolated event; instead, they are highly dynamic and interwoven. "Most conspiracy theories that emerged in our dataset were complementary to one another," stated the investigators. "Such findings allude that individuals' beliefs in one conspiracy theory may reinforce another, which leads to more sharing behaviors in digital space."
https://phys.org/news/2023-03-twitter-conspiracy-theories-pandemic-involving.html
user_dan t1_jcb0q8j wrote
The paper tries to paint a picture that Bill Gates was the center of the pandemic conspiracies. The Bill Gates stuff was limited to a small slice of the COVID disinformation campaign.
The social media discussions about Bill Gates were never organic. No one/bot wakes up one day with a Gates conspiracy and it goes viral. The catalyst is always a mainstream article or interview with or mentioning Bill Gates. From there, bigger influencers / bots pick it up and run with it until the trending spike dissipates.
The paper is looking at the train caboose in isolation and trying to come up with reasons for it's speed.
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