{"status":"ok","message-type":"work","message-version":"1.0.0","message":{"indexed":{"date-parts":[[2026,5,20]],"date-time":"2026-05-20T23:09:17Z","timestamp":1779318557520,"version":"3.51.4"},"reference-count":36,"publisher":"SAGE Publications","issue":"2","license":[{"start":{"date-parts":[[2020,7,1]],"date-time":"2020-07-01T00:00:00Z","timestamp":1593561600000},"content-version":"unspecified","delay-in-days":0,"URL":"https:\/\/creativecommons.org\/licenses\/by\/4.0\/"}],"funder":[{"DOI":"10.13039\/501100000024","name":"Canadian Institutes of Health Research","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","award":["Canadian 2019 Novel Coronavirus (COVID-19) Rapid R"],"award-info":[{"award-number":["Canadian 2019 Novel Coronavirus (COVID-19) Rapid R"]}],"id":[{"id":"10.13039\/501100000024","id-type":"DOI","asserted-by":"publisher"}]}],"content-domain":{"domain":["journals.sagepub.com"],"crossmark-restriction":true},"short-container-title":["Big Data &amp; Society"],"published-print":{"date-parts":[[2020,7]]},"abstract":"<jats:p>In late March of 2020, a new hashtag, #FilmYourHospital, made its first appearance on social media. The hashtag encouraged people to visit local hospitals to take pictures and videos of empty hospitals to help \u201cprove\u201d that the COVID-19 pandemic is an elaborate hoax. Using techniques from Social Network Analysis, this case study examines how this conspiracy theory propagated on Twitter and whether the hashtag virality was aided by the use of automation or coordination among Twitter users. We found that while much of the content came from users with limited reach, the oxygen that fueled this conspiracy in its early days came from a handful of prominent conservative politicians and far right political activists on Twitter. These power users used this hashtag to build awareness about the campaign and to encourage their followers to break quarantine and film what is happening at their local hospitals. After the initial boost by a few prominent accounts, the campaign was mostly sustained by pro-Trump accounts, followed by a secondary wave of propagation outside the U.S. The rise of the #FilmYourHospital conspiracy from a single tweet demonstrates the ongoing challenge of addressing false, viral information during the COVID-19 pandemic. While the spread of misinformation can be potentially mitigated by fact-checking and directing people to credible sources of information from public health agencies, false and misleading claims that are driven by politics and supported by strong convictions and not science are much harder to root out.<\/jats:p>","DOI":"10.1177\/2053951720938405","type":"journal-article","created":{"date-parts":[[2020,7,21]],"date-time":"2020-07-21T00:42:55Z","timestamp":1595292175000},"update-policy":"https:\/\/doi.org\/10.1177\/sage-journals-update-policy","source":"Crossref","is-referenced-by-count":156,"title":["Going viral: How a single tweet spawned a COVID-19 conspiracy theory on Twitter"],"prefix":"10.1177","volume":"7","author":[{"ORCID":"https:\/\/orcid.org\/0000-0003-2366-5163","authenticated-orcid":false,"given":"Anatoliy","family":"Gruzd","sequence":"first","affiliation":[{"name":"Ted Rogers School of Management, Social Media Lab, Ryerson University, Toronto, Canada"}],"role":[{"role":"author","vocabulary":"crossref"}]},{"given":"Philip","family":"Mai","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Ted Rogers School of Management, Social Media Lab, Ryerson University, Toronto, Canada"}],"role":[{"role":"author","vocabulary":"crossref"}]}],"member":"179","published-online":{"date-parts":[[2020,7,20]]},"reference":[{"key":"bibr1-2053951720938405","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","unstructured":"Bastian M, Heymann S, Jacomy M (2009) Gephi: An open source software for exploring and manipulating networks. In:\n                      Third international AAAI conference on weblogs and social media\n                      , San Jose, California, USA, 17\u201320 May, 2009.","DOI":"10.1609\/icwsm.v3i1.13937"},{"key":"bibr2-2053951720938405","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.1088\/1742-5468\/2008\/10\/P10008"},{"key":"bibr3-2053951720938405","unstructured":"Britzky H (2017, 23 September).\n                      The pro-Trump Twitter accounts he retweets\n                      . Axios. Available at: www.axios.com\/the-pro-trump-twitter-accounts-he-retweets-1513305633-083cdd43-38e3-48bc-a696-c6a6afa60804.html (accessed 16 June 2020)."},{"key":"bibr4-2053951720938405","unstructured":"CDC. (2020, 11 February).\n                      Steps Healthcare Facilities Can Take Now to Prepare for COVID-19.\n                      Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Available at: www.cdc.gov\/coronavirus\/2019-ncov\/hcp\/steps-to-prepare.html (accessed 16 June 2020)."},{"key":"bibr5-2053951720938405","unstructured":"Davis CA, Varol O, Ferrara E, et\u00a0al. (2016) BotOrNot: A system to evaluate social bots.\n                      ArXiv:1602.00975 [Cs]\n                      . Available at: www.arxiv.org\/abs\/1602.00975 (accessed 16 June 2020)."},{"key":"bibr6-2053951720938405","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","unstructured":"Giglietto F, Righetti N, Marino G (2019)\n                      Understanding coordinated and inauthentic link sharing behavior on Facebook in the run-up to 2018 general election and 2019 European election in Italy\n                      . [Preprint]. SocArXiv. DOI: 10.31235\/osf.io\/3jteh. Available at: https:\/\/doi.org\/10.31235\/osf.io\/3jteh (accessed 18 June 2020).","DOI":"10.31235\/osf.io\/3jteh"},{"key":"bibr7-2053951720938405","unstructured":"Golden H (2020, 25 March) US hospitals postpone non-emergency procedures amid coronavirus pandemic.\n                      The Guardian\n                      . Available at: www.theguardian.com\/world\/2020\/mar\/25\/us-hospitals-coronavirus-pandemic-postpone-elective-surgery-procedures (accessed 16 June 2020)."},{"key":"bibr8-2053951720938405","unstructured":"Gruzd A (2016a) Netlytic: Software for automated text and social network analysis. Available at: https:\/\/netlytic.org (accessed 16 June 2020)."},{"key":"bibr9-2053951720938405","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","unstructured":"Gruzd A (2016b) Who are we modelling: Bots or humans? In:\n                      Proceedings of the 25th international conference companion on World Wide Web\n                      , p. 551. DOI: 10.1145\/2872518.2896920.","DOI":"10.1145\/2872518.2896920"},{"key":"bibr10-2053951720938405","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","unstructured":"Gruzd A, Abul-Fottouh D, Mashatan A (2020, 7 January) Who is influencing the #GDPR discussion on Twitter: Implications for public relations. In:\n                      Proceedings of the 53rd Hawaii international conference on system sciences\n                      . DOI: 10.24251\/HICSS.2020.319. Available at: http:\/\/hdl.handle.net\/10125\/64061 (accessed 18 June 2020).","DOI":"10.24251\/HICSS.2020.319"},{"key":"bibr11-2053951720938405","author":"Gruzd A","year":"2020","journal-title":"Ryerson University Social Media Lab Report. 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Available at: https:\/\/policyoptions.irpp.org\/magazines\/april-2020\/we-can-inoculate-ourselves-against-covid-19-misinformation\/ (accessed 16 June 2020)."},{"key":"bibr17-2053951720938405","unstructured":"Morse B (2020, 16 April). Hospitals see fewer heart attack, stroke visits in emergency department.\n                      NBC WJAR\n                      . Available at: www.turnto10.com\/features\/health-landing-page\/hospitals-see-fewer-heart-attack-stroke-visits-in-emergency-department (accessed 16 June 2020)."},{"key":"bibr18-2053951720938405","unstructured":"Paavola J, Helo T, Miika Sartonen HJ, et\u00a0al. (2016) The automated detection of trolling bots and cyborgs and the analysis of their impact in the social media. In:\n                      European conference on cyber warfare and security\n                      , pp.237\u2013244. Available at: www.search.proquest.com.ezproxy.lib.ryerson.ca\/docview\/1803775718\/abstract\/8AC9604088A44BCBPQ\/1 (accessed 16 June 2020)."},{"key":"bibr19-2053951720938405","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","unstructured":"Rauchfleisch A, Kaiser J (2020)\n                      The false positive problem of automatic bot detection in social science research\n                      . SSRN. Available at: https:\/\/papers.ssrn.com\/sol3\/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3565233 (accessed 16 June 2020).","DOI":"10.2139\/ssrn.3565233"},{"key":"bibr20-2053951720938405","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.1590\/1982-25542019239035"},{"key":"bibr21-2053951720938405","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","unstructured":"Recuero R, Soares FB, Gruzd A (2020) Hyperpartisanship, disinformation and political conversations on Twitter: The Brazilian Presidential Election of 2018. In:\n                      Proceedings of the international AAAI conference on Web and social media\n                      , vol. 14, pp.569\u2013578. Available at: www.aaai.org\/ojs\/index.php\/ICWSM\/article\/view\/7324 (accessed 16 June 2020).","DOI":"10.1609\/icwsm.v14i1.7324"},{"key":"bibr22-2053951720938405","unstructured":"Rinaldo S, Jones AM (2020, 5 April). How is COVID-19 affecting other medical procedures?\n                      CTV News\n                      . Available at: www.ctvnews.ca\/health\/coronavirus\/how-is-covid-19-affecting-other-medical-procedures-1.4883666 (accessed 16 June 2020)."},{"key":"bibr23-2053951720938405","unstructured":"Ruest N, Milligan I (2016) An open-source strategy for documenting events: The case study of the 42nd Canadian Federal Election on Twitter. Available at: www.uwspace.uwaterloo.ca\/handle\/10012\/11747 (accessed 16 June 2020)."},{"key":"bibr24-2053951720938405","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","unstructured":"Soares FB, Recuero R, Zago G (2019) Asymmetric polarization on Twitter and the 2018 Brazilian Presidential Elections. In:\n                      Proceedings of the 10th international conference on social media and society\n                      , Toronto, Canada, July 2019, pp.67\u201376. New York, NY: Association for Computing Machinery.","DOI":"10.1145\/3328529.3328546"},{"key":"bibr25-2053951720938405","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.1038\/d41586-019-02235-x"},{"key":"bibr26-2053951720938405","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.1007\/s42001-018-0018-9"},{"key":"bibr27-2053951720938405","unstructured":"Temperton J (2020, 6 April). How the 5G coronavirus conspiracy theory tore through the internet.\n                      Wired UK.\n                      Available at: www.wired.co.uk\/article\/5g-coronavirus-conspiracy-theory (accessed 16 June 2020)."},{"key":"bibr28-2053951720938405","unstructured":"Twitter (n.d.).\n                      The Twitter rules\n                      . Available at: https:\/\/help.twitter.com\/en\/rules-and-policies\/twitter-rules (accessed 14 May 2020)."},{"key":"bibr29-2053951720938405","unstructured":"Twitter (2019, September). Platform manipulation and spam policy. Available at: https:\/\/help.twitter.com\/en\/rules-and-policies\/platform-manipulation (accessed 16 June 2020)."},{"key":"bibr30-2053951720938405","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.1177\/1461444817712086"},{"key":"bibr31-2053951720938405","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.1177\/1075547017731776"},{"key":"bibr32-2053951720938405","unstructured":"WHO (n.d.). Coronavirus disease (COVID-19) advice for the public: Myth busters. Available at: www.who.int\/emergencies\/diseases\/novel-coronavirus-2019\/advice-for-public\/myth-busters (accessed 16 June 2020)."},{"key":"bibr33-2053951720938405","unstructured":"Yang K-C, Varol O, Hui P-M, et\u00a0al. (2019) Scalable and generalizable social bot detection through data selection.\n                      ArXiv:1911.09179 [Cs]\n                      . Available at: http:\/\/arxiv.org\/abs\/1911.09179 (accessed 16 June 2020)."},{"key":"bibr34-2053951720938405","unstructured":"Zadrozny B, Collin B (2020, 30 March). Coronavirus deniers take aim at hospitals as pandemic grows.\n                      NBC News\n                      . 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Geneva, Switzerland: International World Wide Web Conferences Steering Committee.","DOI":"10.1145\/2872427.2883052"}],"container-title":["Big Data &amp; Society"],"original-title":[],"language":"en","link":[{"URL":"https:\/\/journals.sagepub.com\/doi\/pdf\/10.1177\/2053951720938405","content-type":"application\/pdf","content-version":"vor","intended-application":"text-mining"},{"URL":"https:\/\/journals.sagepub.com\/doi\/full-xml\/10.1177\/2053951720938405","content-type":"application\/xml","content-version":"vor","intended-application":"text-mining"},{"URL":"https:\/\/journals.sagepub.com\/doi\/pdf\/10.1177\/2053951720938405","content-type":"unspecified","content-version":"vor","intended-application":"similarity-checking"}],"deposited":{"date-parts":[[2026,4,28]],"date-time":"2026-04-28T12:58:01Z","timestamp":1777381081000},"score":1,"resource":{"primary":{"URL":"https:\/\/journals.sagepub.com\/doi\/10.1177\/2053951720938405"}},"subtitle":[],"short-title":[],"issued":{"date-parts":[[2020,7]]},"references-count":36,"journal-issue":{"issue":"2","published-print":{"date-parts":[[2020,7]]}},"alternative-id":["10.1177\/2053951720938405"],"URL":"https:\/\/doi.org\/10.1177\/2053951720938405","relation":{},"ISSN":["2053-9517","2053-9517"],"issn-type":[{"value":"2053-9517","type":"print"},{"value":"2053-9517","type":"electronic"}],"subject":[],"published":{"date-parts":[[2020,7]]},"article-number":"2053951720938405"}}