Juxtaposing 5G Coronavirus Tweets with General Coronavirus Tweets During the Early Months of Coronavirus Outbreak

摘要

Understanding the behaviour of online communities on social media platforms helps in controlling the accompanying adverse phenomena like false claims and conspiracy theories. Towards that aim, we present a multifaceted analysis of Twitter users and set a special focus on their 5G coronavirus tweets, in the light of the infamous 5G conspiracy theory. We contrast their idiosyncrasies with general coronavirus tweets in five million tweets acquired over a period of four months and a cadence of two weeks. We find that awareness raising and situation monitoring are two main concerns of Twitter online community. Additionally, 0.13% of the elicited tweets mention 5G, where a causal relationship between 5G and coronavirus besides China-related discussions are more evident compared to overall tweets. Indicators of other conspiracy theories appear more frequently in 5G coronavirus tweets as well.