{"id":3856,"date":"2023-06-14T14:08:18","date_gmt":"2023-06-14T19:08:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/?p=3856"},"modified":"2023-06-14T14:20:07","modified_gmt":"2023-06-14T19:20:07","slug":"new-study-reveals-tiktoks-spread-of-covid-19-misinformation","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/2023\/06\/14\/new-study-reveals-tiktoks-spread-of-covid-19-misinformation\/","title":{"rendered":"New study reveals TikTok&#8217;s spread of COVID-19 misinformation"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class=\"panel body-content\"><div class=\"panel__container\">\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/phys.org\/news\/2023-06-reveals-tiktok-covid-misinformation.html?fbclid=IwAR0Osp_XHCSADkRLPWSwe4mRc5fmJAQdW8nBoLiF7CV1qL0siySZra5NF5s\">PhysOrg<\/a> A new study recently published in the\u00a0<em>International Journal of Communication<\/em>\u00a0reveals how TikTok&#8217;s unique features have been used to spread COVID-19 misinformation. Unlike Twitter, which uses a text format, the micro-video format of TikTok makes it more difficult to detect deceptive information. That&#8217;s why I lean towards qualitative methods for deeply understanding how misinformation is appearing on TikTok,&#8221; said the study&#8217;s author, Morgan Lundy, Ph.D. student in the School of Information Sciences at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. &#8220;The information is passed through such rich media objects\u2014you have sound, visuals, text,\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/phys.org\/tags\/body+language\/\">body language<\/a>, captions, and meme elements that require context, and all these factors interact at once to create the &#8216;meaning&#8217; or (mis)information that is being shared.&#8221; <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Lundy used a dual approach of algorithm training and hashtag sampling to gain data for her research. She also used methods of searching for &#8220;community language&#8221; rather than expected terms, to get a much more representative and useful picture of how misinformation looks on the platform. According to Lundy, the incredible reactiveness of TikTok&#8217;s algorithms&#8217; collaborative filtering poses a particular challenge to containing the infodemic.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>&#8220;The more misinformation you interact with, the more that you see\u2014you can quickly find yourself immersed in massive numbers of TikTok videos relating to COVID-19 vaccine misinformation just after liking a few videos,&#8221; she said.<\/p>\n<\/div><\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>PhysOrg A new study recently published in the\u00a0International Journal of Communication\u00a0reveals how TikTok&#8217;s unique features have been used to spread COVID-19 misinformation. Unlike Twitter, which uses a text format, the micro-video format of TikTok makes it more difficult to detect deceptive information. That&#8217;s why I lean towards qualitative methods for deeply understanding how misinformation is [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":11,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[17],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3856","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-misinformation-disinformation-and-conspiracy-theories"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3856","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/11"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3856"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3856\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3857,"href":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3856\/revisions\/3857"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3856"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3856"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3856"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}