COVID-19 crisis has caused the growth of popularity of conspiracy theories disseminated by opinion leaders as well as anonymous actors via social media. This trend poses a danger because supporters of fake agendas contribute to spreading disinformation, deny the real risks, break the rules, and even undertake some unlawful actions. Since March 2020 Russian Federal Service for Supervision of Communications, Information Technology and Mass Media (Roskomnadzor) initiated blocking fake news about coronavirus on social media but some of them remained available to the public. In our study, we considered the agenda on conspiracy theories presented in the posts on the most popular Russian SNS VKontakte. The initial database contained 2342689 posts published between March 30 and May 12, 2020. After the interpretation of the results of topic modeling, we found that conspiracy-related posts comprised a small share among all popular COVID-related posts on VKontakte. Content analysis showed that only about a half of the posts with information on conspiracy theories about COVID-19 was devoted to the promotion of conspiracy arguments but the sufficient share related to the debate on alternative versions or criticism. It was revealed that the most popular theory presented in posts on Vkontakte can be described as “anti-vax/politicized” version of “the chipping theory” which found the link between coronavirus and “planned chipping” of population via “mass vaccination”. The structure of the agenda on COVID-related conspiracy theories is described. The key features of the analyzed agenda on conspiracy theories and practical applications are discussed.

Original languageEnglish
Title of host publicationElectronic Governance and Open Society
Subtitle of host publicationChallenges in Eurasia - 7th International Conference, EGOSE 2020, Proceedings
EditorsAndrei Chugunov, Igor Khodachek, Yuri Misnikov, Dmitrii Trutnev
PublisherSpringer Nature
Pages322-335
Number of pages14
Volume1349
Edition Communications in Computer and Information Science
ISBN (Electronic)978-3-030-67238-6
ISBN (Print)978-3-030-67237-9
DOIs
StatePublished - 2020
Event7th Conference on Electronic Governance and Open Society: Challenges in Eurasia, EGOSE 2020 - St. Petersburg, Russian Federation
Duration: 18 Nov 202019 Nov 2020

Publication series

NameCommunications in Computer and Information Science
Volume1349
ISSN (Print)1865-0929
ISSN (Electronic)1865-0937

Conference

Conference7th Conference on Electronic Governance and Open Society: Challenges in Eurasia, EGOSE 2020
Country/TerritoryRussian Federation
CitySt. Petersburg
Period18/11/2019/11/20

    Scopus subject areas

  • Mathematics(all)
  • Computer Science(all)

    Research areas

  • COVID-19, Conspiracy theories, Denialism, Russia, Social media, Vkontakte

ID: 74982172