Technology Lie detector Misinformation has increased during the pandemic, and social network analysis suggests that, in the case of Covid-19 conspiracies, ordinary people rather than bots are the key drivers. By Wasim Ahmed O ver the past few months, there have been a host of Covid-19 conspiracy theories shared across social media. In some quarters, this has been described as a tsunami of misinformation. In the early phase of the pandemic, wild theories suggested that American business magnate Bill Gates had intentionally caused Covid-19 to implant digital microchips that could track and control people. There have also been conspiracies around vaccines altering human DNA. Other theories have claimed that technology, such as 5G, is the cause of the virus, while others have argued that the entire pandemic is a hoax and encouraged social media users to film their local hospitals to prove they are empty. Our research focused on the 5G and #FilmYourHospital conspiracy theories, and we published two papers in the Journal of Medical Internet Research in 2020. It has become really important to have access to tools and methods to rapidly analyse social media data to detect drivers of misinformation. This is because false and misleading information is a serious public health concern. If certain people believe that the Covid-19 pandemic is a hoax, they may ignore lockdown restrictions and/or be sceptical about vaccines. There is research to support the view that those who might believe in conspiracies may be less likely to follow government recommendations. This could have negative health outcomes, making it important to study the types of misinformation circulating on social media and the drivers of that misinformation. In the case of the 5G and Covid-19 conspiracy, 5G phone masts were vandalised across the UK, as well as in Europe. For the #FilmYourHospital conspiracy, people attempted to enter hospitals to film inside them. 54 Impact ISSUE 33 2021_pp54-55 Tech.indd 54 26/03/2021 10:16