Twitter Fact Check (Credit: Midjourney)
From viral tweets claiming garlic water could cure COVID-19 to users promoting dog parasite drugs as treatments for the virus and myths that vaccines make people “Bluetooth connectable,” misinformation spread like wildfire on Twitter (now X) during the pandemic.
At the same time, many users took to the platform to debunk false claims and counter fake health advice.
But who were the users behind the misinformation spread and these competing streams of information?
In a new study, USC researchers developed an artificial intelligence (AI) tool to identify tweets containing COVID-19 misinformation and distinguish the users spreading false claims from those actively countering them.
