October 14, 2020

On October 9, 2020, Matthew D. Kearney, PhD candidate, Shawn C. Chiang, second-year PhD student, and Philip Massey, PhD, MPH, associate professor, each in the department of Community Health and Prevention at the Dornsife School of Public Health, released a paper “The Twitter Origins and Evolution of the COVID-19 “Plandemic” Conspiracy Theory” in the Harvard Kennedy School's Misinformation Review.

Though social media can be a useful tool for spreading public health messages, the platforms can also contribute to the spread of misinformation and cynicism about COVID-19.

In this peer-reviewed paper, Dornsife researchers examine the “plandemic” conspiracy theory that was fueled by a fake documentary and trended via Twitter in May 2020.