'Masks Don’t Work:' Ideology Associations and The Geospatial Propagation of COVID-19 Disinformation on Twitter

Max Erdemandi;

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ABSTRACT

This exploratory research examines the ideological underpinnings of geospatially diffused disinformation regarding the effectiveness of mask use in reducing the transmission of COVID-19, and the damage such falsehoods have caused in controlling the spread of the virus by exploring potential associations between disinformation tweets and CDC’s case surveillance data. Consistent with previous research, our analysis of tweets collected in Nov. 2020 (n=16,753) shows evidence for the strong association between conservative political ideological and religious indicators and the tendency to traffic disinformation regarding mask use on Twitter. A geospatial analysis reveals that while COVID-19 disinformation on Twitter was widespread nationally, it concentrated in 18 states that skewed significantly more conservative, and the urban-rural divide was not as pronounced. In addition, disinformation was found to be a predictor of new COVID-related deaths.

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