The Social Dilemma, a Netflix recent well-received documentary, is like that YouTube video with the title Everything wrong with that sitcom that ruins your favorite TV show. The documentary is just like that YouTube video shows you everything wrong with all the social media platforms (with no exception). It’s a good watch. The present article, however, is not about the dark side of social media but rather about the combination of social medial and Covid-19 from the point of view of social science. The rest of the article is about the role of social media during the current pandemic and, in return, how the pandemic has been influencing social media.

The Social Dilemma points out everything wrong with social media platforms. Utopia, Amazon Original series, points out everything wrong with Covid-19. Or not. For most of us, we don’t need streaming services to point out everything wrong with Covid-19. If you’re not sure though, click here¹. Knowing what do social media and Covid-19 have in common is a different story from knowing what’s wrong in each of which, which the rest of the article is all about.

Different social media platforms promote different levels of misinformation about Covid-19, a new study shows². The researchers defined what is a called coefficient of relative amplification, or for short CRA, to show whether or not a platform tends toward spreading reliable or unreliable information about Covid-19. CRA was the fundamental base the researchers used to compare different platforms, and they define it as “… [CRA] measures the permeability of a platform to reliable/unreliable”. The chosen platforms were YouTube, Reddit, Twitter, and Gab (if you’re asking yourself what the heck is that, you’re not alone I asked the same question. When I checked it online, the first thing I got was Donald Trump saying the election was stolen from him! I took a screenshot you and could download it by clicking here if you want proof of that encounter.).

To ease our understanding of the results, there are only three meaningful outcomes one needs to bear in mind; i) if the value of CRA is equal to 1, this indicates that a platform promotes reliable sources just as much as it promotes nonreliable sources, ii) if CAR is smaller than 1, it indicates that a platform promotes more reliable sources over nonreliable ones, and iii) if CRA is larger than 1, it indicates that a platform promotes more nonreliable sources over reliable ones.

Results showed that YouTube tends toward promoting more reliable sources than the others with CRA of 0.35. Reddit comes second with CRA of 0.55. Twitter is rather neutral, with CRA of 0.97. Gab, however, is the least reliable platform to retrieve accurate information about Coivd-19. It has CRA of 3.9, which means there are almost 4 times of unreliable information compared with reliable information about Covid-19. To me, after seeing Trump’s Gabees (or whatever that’s called) on Gab the first time ever I checked what Gab is, makes me feel more confident in the results the article is claiming.

Saying, by generalizing, that Gab is the worst and YouTube is best for getting reliable information in general, most probably wouldn’t be an inaccurate statement. Since YouTube is a very popular platform, it tends to transmit massive information compared with the rest of the platforms. As a result, YouTube users are more likely to engage in nonreliable sources than Gab users are because YouTube amplifies misinformation 2.5 10^3 times than Gab does. In another word, the engagement with misinformation about Covid-19 on YouTube is three-fold higher than the ones on Gab but the engagement of reliable sources on YouTube surpasses the nonreliable engagement numbers. That’s to say, YouTube passes almost 3 times reliable information than it passes questionable information but at massive scale that surpasses other platforms.

The researchers also emphasized there are no specific patterns for the spread of either reliable or unreliable information. In another word, the spread of information, whether it’s of positive or negative nature, is not directly bonded to the platforms but, more accurately, to both the working mechanism of the platforms and the interaction of users with the subject; Covid-19. But how about the effect of the pandemic on the people through social media?

To muddy the waters, a separate study showed that, during the pandemic, the exposure of social media increased mental health problems to the citizen of Wuhan, the Chinese city where the Sars-2 first appeared³. While those who were less exposed to social media were less susceptible to mental health problems the study affirms. The reason was attributed to what’s called “infodemic” which is the “…overabundance of information, both online and offline.” according to World Health Organization⁴. in other words, the study is suggesting that the rapid spread of unreliable information was the reason to cause the citizen of Wuhan depression and anxiety during the pandemic.

In conclusion, the targeting practices of social media and the users of social media are the culprits for the widespread misinformation about Covid-19 or for any other subject for that matter. As a result, depression and anxiety disorders and mass hysteria attacks have risen sharply among citizens during the pandemic. So, it’s of absolute importance that every single of us to be critical of what we read and make sure that we don’t pass information just because we feel it’s okay; it’s probably not okay.