#JunkScience: Investigating pseudoscience disinformation in the Russian Internet Research Agency tweets
Indy & Will
27 June 2020
Author Verified?
true
High School Summary
A recent study found that anti-vaccination messages were present in Russian social media posts during the 2016 US Presidential election. This new research builds on that finding and suggests that these posts also contained other science-related content, including climate change, genetically modified organisms, Ebola, flat Earth beliefs, and Zika. It seems that genetically modified organisms and flat Earth beliefs were mentioned as a way to hide the real purpose of the posts, while climate change, Ebola, Zika, and vaccination were emphasized more to spread false information on purpose.
University Summary
A recent study has found that Russian Troll Tweets related to the 2016 US Presidential election contained anti-vaccination propaganda. Building on this discovery, researchers hypothesized that these tweets would also contain other science-related content, including pseudo or anti-science messages. The study found that in addition to anti-vaccination content, the Russia tweets also mentioned climate change, genetically modified organisms, Ebola, flat Earth beliefs, and Zika. It was observed that genetically modified organisms and flat Earth beliefs were mentioned at similar rates to other Twitter users, while climate change, Ebola, Zika, and vaccination were emphasized more in these tweets, potentially for strategic disinformation purposes.