Facebook and Youtube pose public health risk due to 'toxic mix' of coronavirus conspiracy theories, study warns

Sixty per per cent of those who believe the virus is linked to 5G radiation get their information from YouTube, survey shows. Samuel Lovett reports

Unmasked! Facebook is the favoured source for Covid-19 deniers (AFP/Getty)

Those who regularly turn to social media for information on coronavirus are more likely to believe conspiracy theories about Covid-19 and break lockdown rules, new research suggests.

The findings are based on three separate surveys conducted by King’s College London and Ipsos MORI, and have been published in a peer-reviewed article in the journal Psychological Medicine.

According to one of the surveys, which involved 2,254 participants aged 16-75, 60 per cent of those who believe the virus is linked to 5G radiation get their information from YouTube.

More than half (56 per cent) who believe there is no hard evidence coronavirus exists use Facebook as a key information source. And 45 per cent of those who believe Covid-19 deaths are being exaggerated get much of their information from Facebook.

The article concluded that, on the basis of the data, there was a statistically significant link between believing in such conspiracy theories and using social media.

The same survey acknowledged by researchers also established that people who have broken lockdown rules are more likely to be getting their information on Covid-19 from social media.

Close to 60 per cent of those who have gone outside with coronavirus symptoms use YouTube as a main information source.

While 42 per cent of who have dismissed the two-metre social distancing rule get a lot of their information from the video streaming site.

And 37 per cent of people who have had friends or family visit them at home list Facebook as a key source.

The survey also reflected on the links between political views and responses among the population to the pandemic.

Just under 40 per cent of Conservative voters think coronavirus was probably created in a lab, compared with 23 per cent of Labour voters.

Leave voters (43 per cent) are twice as likely as Remain voters (20 per cent) to believe the virus was created in a lab.

And Labour voters (38 per cent) are twice as likely as Conservative voters (19 per cent) to believe the coronavirus death toll is being deliberately reduced or hidden by the authorities.

Professor Bobby Duffy, director of the Policy Institute at King’s College London, said: “There are clear links between belief in conspiracies and both lower trust in government and less compliance with the guidelines set to control the disease.

“Where people get their information about the virus is also strongly related, with both believing in conspiracies and breaking the lockdown rules clearly linked to getting more of your information from social media.

“These sort of associations cannot prove that misinformation on social media platforms causes belief in conspiracies, lower trust and a greater likelihood of breaking the rules, but they point to a toxic mix between underlying beliefs and misleading information that can have real effects on how people behave, even during a pandemic.”

Facebook said it had “removed hundreds of thousands of Covid-19-related misinformation that could lead to imminent harm including posts about false cures, claims that social distancing measures do not work, and that 5G causes coronavirus.”

It added that it had directed more than 3.5 million visits to official Covid-19 information and lockdown measures from the NHS and the government’s website.