Berlin 2024 – scientific programme

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SOE: Fachverband Physik sozio-ökonomischer Systeme

SOE 7: Poster

SOE 7.13: Poster

Monday, March 18, 2024, 18:00–20:30, Poster D

Analysis of COVID-19 Related Misinformation Spread in Telegram Communities — •Roman David Ventzke, Sebastian Bernd Mohr, Andreas Schneider, and Viola Priesemann — Max-Planck-Institut für Dynamik und Selbstorganisation, Göttingen

To effectively combat the proliferation of misinformation in online social media, it is important to understand content spread in social networks. We therefore investigate the dynamics of (mis)information propagation via the Telegram messaging app, with the aim to improve quantitative understanding of dissemination processes in self-organized social network settings.

As a basis for this study, we employ a novel large dataset of messages from Telegram group chats and channels. This dataset comprises more than 2.3 billion messages from more than 150,000 different chats and focusses on COVID-19-related content during the time of the pandemic.

We track and analyze information avalanches propagating in this network of chats to quantify their spreading dynamics and compare the spreading processes of information from trustworthy news sources and misinformation. We also examine the impact of potentially spread-influencing factors such as content-fostered emotional engagement. Finally, we investigate through the lens of statistical physics whether the observed information avalanches within the telegram communities constitute an (almost) critical process.

Keywords: Telegram; infodemics; (mis)information spread; social media; criticality