As of March 2021, the SARS-CoV-2 virus has been responsible for over 115 million cases of COVID-19 worldwide, resulting in over 2.5 million deaths. As the virus spread exponentially, so did its media coverage, resulting in a proliferation of conflicting information on social media platformsa so-called infodemic. In this viewpoint, we survey past literature investigating the role of automated accounts, or bots, in spreading such misinformation, drawing connections to the COVID-19 pandemic. We also review strategies used by bots to spread (mis)information and examine the potential origins of bots. We conclude by conducting and presenting a secondary analysis of data sets of known bots in which we find that up to 66% of bots are discussing COVID-19. The proliferation of COVID-19 (mis)information by bots, coupled with human susceptibility to believing and sharing misinformation, may well impact the course of the pandemic.
【저자키워드】 COVID-19, public health, coronavirus, social media, infodemic, Twitter, misinformation, disinformation, infodemiology, infoveillance, social listening, fake news, bots, spambots, online communities, 【초록키워드】 pandemic, susceptibility, COVID-19 pandemic, media, Spread, Coverage, automated, information, Analysis, deaths, proliferation, data set, connection, virus spread, Course, responsible, resulting, presenting, the SARS-CoV-2 virus,