Information Diffusion under COVID-19

Abstract

In 2019, COVID-19 began to spread in Wuhan, China, and became a pandemic that spread around the world. In the information society, various information is able to be diffused through social media. In such a situation, the diffusion of inappropriate information is called Infodemic, which has become a major social problem. In this paper, we investigate the diffusion of information on social media, which is a new information source in the modern information society. We have clarified how we shared and spread information under COVID-19. The results allowed us to capture shifts in topics of interest, which indicates that people may be losing interest in COVID-19 infection prevention information. We also found that “anger” emotions were often diffused on a large scale, which indicates that social anxiety may be increasing.