Bots are waging a COVID-19 disinformation campaign on social media

[Dennis Donovan]

https://www.inverse.com/innovation/bots-are-spreading-lies-about-the-coronavirus-on-social-media

At a time when everyone is looking for answers, bots are spreading lies about the coronavirus.

The latest figures show there are now 60 confirmed cases of COVID-19, also known as the coronavirus, in the United States. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has warned that the virus is likely to spread and suggests Americans prepare for that scenario. This has a lot of Americans worried that they might get infected, and this concern has been compounded by the fact there hasn't been a lot of information released regarding how lethal the virus is, how easily it infects people and more.

Health experts have warned that misinformation about the coronavirus has been spreading and that this misinformation presents a very real danger. Based on a social media analysis, Inverse has discovered that a lot of the misinformation that's being spread online is coming from bots.

Christopher Bouzy, the founder of Bot Sentinel, did a Twitter analysis for Inverse and found these bots and trollbots are making an array of false claims. These bots are claiming China intentionally created the virus, that it's a biological weapon, that Democrats are overstating the threat to hurt Donald Trump and more. While we can't confirm the origin of these bots, they are decidedly pro-Trump.

Here are some of the many examples we found of this bot and trollbot activity:







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Dean Koontz?

[dewsgirl]

1. Not only bots, the Senate's very own Tom Cotton has been

pushing it as well.

[SWBTATTReg]

2. That's fine. The idiots (repugs) can push a fake agenda only so much, and before you know it,

they've lost all credibility and believability. Diseases don't look at politics and partisan hacks. It impacts and infects everyone equally.

[Initech]

3. Some guy at the bar I went to last night...

Made an assumption (repeatedly) about how people with beards or any kind of facial hair would get the Corona Virus quicker than those that didn't, then followed that up with "It was on the internet so it must be true!", then followed *THAT* up with "Hey why not? AOC said it" (which she did *NOT* say that) and ended with a *wink*. Like he was trying to be funny. Well, he failed.

[Liberal In Texas]

4. 1981 book. When first published called Gorki-400. Reprint in 1989 name changed to Wuhan-400

Sometimes things are just a coincidence. Like the book that was written in 1898 14 years before the Titanic sank called "The Wreck of the Titan: Or, Futility." Where a large ocean liner with too few lifeboats strikes an iceberg in April and sinks.

[Blue_Tires]

5. Greenwald and Snowden were unavailable for comment

[maxrandb]

6. I want the Democratic majority in 2021 to take steps

to absolutely destroy Facebook and Twitter.

Zuckerberg and Dorsey need to know they have about 2 seconds to fix their screwed up platforms, or they will be fixed for them.

They need to be broken into so many pieces that they look like a kitchen delivery from IKEA.