Assessing the risks of "infodemics" in response to COVID-19 epidemics

Understand

Our society is built on a complex web of interdependencies whose effects become manifest during extraordinary events such as the COVID-19 pandemic, with shocks in one system propagating to the others to an exceptional extent.

• We analyzed more than 100 millions Twitter messages posted worldwide in 64 languages during the epidemic emergency due to SARS-CoV-2 and classified the reliability of news diffused.
• We found that waves of unreliable and low-quality information anticipate the epidemic ones, exposing entire countries to irrational social behavior and serious threats for public health.
• When the epidemics hit the same area, reliable information is quickly inoculated, like antibodies, and the system shifts focus towards certified informational sources.