We know that fake news tends to go viral quickly. A new study from researchers at the University of Alberta shows the speed of this spread for TikTok videos containing fake news about monkeypox.
Just over 24 hours: That’s how long it took for videos peddling misinformation about monkeypox to reach one million views on TikTok. These figures are particularly worrying: they show the virality of potentially dangerous content, and above all, the speed with which they reach hundreds of thousands of views, or even millions.
These conclusions are drawn from a study, published on October 18, 2022 and carried out by two researchers from the University of Alberta, Canada. More than being surprised by the virality of this content, the researchers see it as a possible solution: “ we should monitor platforms to better understand misleading videos, in order to better respond to them one of the two researchers told Gizmodo, who spotted the study.
Millions of views and thousands of shares on TikTok
The monkeypox epidemic first arrived in Europe in May 2022. The disease immediately became a cause for concern, and according to researchers, the subject became very popular on TikTok, especially for videos. deceitful. To carry out the study, they analyzed 864 videos in English published during the month of May and using the hashtag #monkeypox (the name of the disease, in English).
” We have studied all the videos in order to identify the presence of conspiracy theories “, explain the two researchers. A total of 153 videos were identified, and they received an average of 74,328 likes, 7,890 comments, and they have been shared 13,783 times. The most worrying statistic, however, concerns the number of views: on average, videos peddling conspiracy theories have been viewed 1,485,911 timesall in just 30 hours.
The results therefore show a very significant virality, as soon as the videos are published. The study once again shows that fake news and disinformation tend to be shared much more than videos providing sourced information. In the case of an app used by more than a billion people, including a large portion of underage users, the popularity of conspiratorial videos is particularly alarming.
The researchers are not defeatist, however: our results show that social media could potentially be used in real time to identify and better understand conspiracy videos before they go viral. This is especially important during epidemic periods. The Covid-19 pandemic has shown the problems posed by misinformation, and the need to quickly address it. »
