What do we currently know about factors contributing to rumor creation and how they develop into harmful misinformation?

This is one of eleven primers that the organizing team of the WHO infodemiology conference (June/July 2020) prepared to feed into multidisciplinary discussions in working groups that were discussing a public health research agenda. The primer is not intended to be exhaustive review of literature, but more a rapid review and a starting point for discussion. I will be publishing the primers over the course of next weeks. Hope you find them useful as well. Thank you to colleagues from Demand for Immunization Team at US CDC for participation in primer preparation.

Definitions and Key Concepts

• Rumor: unverified piece of information or story[1]

Rumor Development in Emergencies

Rumors, pieces of information of unknown validity, can be benign and transient or they can be false and damaging if they affect individual and community decision-making detrimental to health, especially in emergencies. Rumors, unlike misinformation or disinformation, may turn out to be true, and can be persistent, long-standing rumors or evolve quickly after an acute event[2].

In emergencies, affected individuals and populations may have difficulty processing complex information and may retain only some of the early information they receive. In such circumstances, rumors can propagate quickly, complicating emergency responses that rely on the affected population following accurate health advice[3]. Conspiracy-linked talk can manifest early after an outbreak or crisis if there is little available information about a new pathogen and low trust in health authorities[4].

The germination and spread of rumors and other types of false information is dependent on characteristics related to culture, language, geography, politics and economics, and therefore manifests differently in every country and sub-nationally[5]. Although rumors can spread through word-of-mouth, they can spread faster and to larger groups of people online; this is where the majority of insights related to rumor development and spread comes from. On social media, networks, connection between people and communities and some behaviors (e.g. shares, tweets) are more readily visible[6]. However, it can make it more difficult to trace a specific rumor to a source than it might be more easily traced if it emanated from more geographically limited channels (e.g. radio, flyers).

Tracking rumors through the media and through community engagement are common tactics used by public health authorities to understand where rumors are emerging. Components to a rumor tracking system may include detection, tracking, classification and verification of rumors[7]. Rumor classification dimensions may include understanding volume, exposure and content production[8]. Additional levels of classification and analysis can involve identifying what is known about the agent, the message, and the interpreter. By further categorizing tracked rumors, such as by the types of motivation (financial, political, social, psychological) and accuracy (misleading, manipulated, fabricated)[9], a fuller picture of the leading rumor themes, if they are rising or falling, can be developed.

More intensive analog methods may be used to track rumors in some communities, especially in at-risk or vulnerable communities not well connected to the internet. These communities are less likely to have ready access to health services, are disproportionately affected in public health emergencies, and are more closed information systems where misinformation can potentially cause more harm[10].

Rumor tracking has been used as a public health monitoring tool to inform responses in recent outbreaks of H5N1[11], Ebola[12], Zika[13] and in COVID-19[14]. Rumor tracking is an important component to the public health response: rumors can reflect local needs, concerns and understanding of a complex health situation, it identifies where more accurate messages may need to be tailored and disseminated to address awareness or operational gaps (e.g. security concerns)[15]. If evidence is used to inform implementation, it can make health programs more responsive to community needs.

Although in the past few years health authorities have increased their ability to track rumors and misinformation, especially in public health emergencies, gaps remain in segmenting populations, understanding how different types of rumors affect different communities, and developing evidence-based interventions to track and address misinformation spread effectively[16].

Further research is needed to characterize the susceptibility of specific populations to rumors and misinformation, why certain narratives take root and how they affect knowledge, intent and behavior and why others do not[17]. A fuller understanding of social, cultural, and political dynamics and how they affect the information landscape, communications channels used, and the origination and spread of rumors will inform more appropriate intervention development.

[1] Arif, A., Shanahan, K., Chou, F. J., Dosouto, Y., Starbird, K., & Spiro, E. S. (2016, February). How information snowballs: Exploring the role of exposure in online rumor propagation. In Proceedings of the 19th ACM Conference on Computer-Supported Cooperative Work & Social Computing (pp. 466-477).

[2] Kou, Y., Gui, X., Chen, Y., & Pine, K. (2017). Conspiracy talk on social media: collective sensemaking during a public health crisis. Proceedings of the ACM on Human-Computer Interaction, 1(CSCW), 1-21.

[3] Reynolds, B., & W. SEEGER, M. A. T. T. H. E. W. (2005). Crisis and emergency risk communication as an integrative model. Journal of health communication, 10(1), 43-55.

[4] Kou, Y., Gui, X., Chen, Y., & Pine, K. (2017). Conspiracy talk on social media: collective sensemaking during a public health crisis. Proceedings of the ACM on Human-Computer Interaction, 1(CSCW), 1-21.

[5] Kaur, K., Nair, S., Kwok, Y., Kajimoto, M., Chua, Y. T., Labiste, M., ... & Kruger, A. (2018). Information disorder in Asia and the Pacific: Overview of misinformation ecosystem in Australia, India, Indonesia, Japan, the Philippines, Singapore, South Korea, Taiwan, and Vietnam. Carol and Jo, Hailey and Lin, Lihyun and Le, Trieu Thanh and Kruger, Anne, Information Disorder in Asia and the Pacific: Overview of Misinformation Ecosystem in Australia, India, Indonesia, Japan, the Philippines, Singapore, South Korea, Taiwan, and Vietnam (October 10, 2018).

[6] Wang, Y., McKee, M., Torbica, A., & Stuckler, D. (2019). Systematic literature review on the spread of health-related misinformation on social media. Social Science & Medicine, 112552.

[7] Zubiaga, A., Aker, A., Bontcheva, K., Liakata, M., & Procter, R. (2018). Detection and resolution of rumours in social media: A survey. ACM Computing Surveys (CSUR), 51(2), 1-36.

[8] Zubiaga, A., Aker, A., Bontcheva, K., Liakata, M., & Procter, R. (2018). Detection and resolution of rumours in social media: A survey. ACM Computing Surveys (CSUR), 51(2), 1-36.

[9] Wardle, C., & Derakhshan, H. (2017). Information disorder: Toward an interdisciplinary framework for research and policy making. Council of Europe report, 27.

[10] Xie, B., He, D., Mercer, T., Wang, Y., Wu, D., Fleischmann, K. R., ... & Lee, M. K. (2020). Global health crises are also information crises: A call to action. Journal of the Association for Information Science and Technology.

[11] Gu, H., Chen, B., Zhu, H., Jiang, T., Wang, X., Chen, L., ... & Jiang, J. (2014). Importance of Internet surveillance in public health emergency control and prevention: evidence from a digital epidemiologic study during avian influenza A H7N9 outbreaks. Journal of medical Internet research, 16(1), e20.

[12] Gillespie, A. M., Obregon, R., El Asawi, R., Richey, C., Manoncourt, E., Joshi, K., ... & Quereshi, S. (2016). Social mobilization and community engagement central to the Ebola response in West Africa: lessons for future public health emergencies. Global Health: Science and Practice, 4(4), 626-646.

[13] Avery, E. J. (2017). Public information officers’ social media monitoring during the Zika virus crisis, a global health threat surrounded by public uncertainty. Public Relations Review, 43(3), 468-476.

[14] Tasnim, S., Hossain, M. M., & Mazumder, H. (2020). Impact of Rumors and Misinformation on COVID-19 in Social Media. Journal of Preventive Medicine and Public Health= Yebang Uihakhoe chi, 53(3), 171-174.

[15] Fluck, V. L. (2019, July 02). Managing Misinformation in a Humanitarian Context. Retrieved June 18, 2020, from https://internews.org/resource/managing-misinformation-humanitarian-context

[16] Eckert, S., Sopory, P., Day, A., Wilkins, L., Padgett, D., Novak, J., ... & Gamhewage, G. (2018). Health-related disaster communication and social media: mixed-method systematic review. Health communication, 33(12), 1389-1400.

[17] Wang, Y., McKee, M., Torbica, A., & Stuckler, D. (2019). Systematic literature review on the spread of health-related misinformation on social media. Social Science & Medicine, 112552.