Localizing COVID-19 Misinformation: A Case Study of Tracking Twitter Pandemic Narratives in Pennsylvania Using Computational Network Science

Figures & data

Table 1. Percent of tweets from various PA cities

PA City	Percent of Tweets
Philadelphia	42.0
Pittsburgh	24.8
Allentown	12.7
Norristown	8.0
Chester	5.7
Bethlehem	2.5
Erie	1.0
Palmerton	0.2
Other	3.2

Table 2. Percent of tweets from various PA counties

PA County	Percent of Tweets
Philadelphia	42.0
Allegheny	25.3
Lehigh	15.3
Montgomery	8.4
Delaware	5.9
Erie	1.0
Berks	0.2
Chester	0.2
Carbon	0.2
Other	1.3

Figure 1. COVID-19 communication analysis pipeline.

Table 3. Categories for BEND maneuvers

Narrative Maneuvers		Network Maneuvers
Positive	Negative	Positive	Negative
Enhance	Dismay	Back	Neutralize
Excite	Distract	Build	Narrow
Explain	Distort	Bridge	Neglect
Engage	Dismiss	Boost	Nuke

Figure 2. Distribution of PA tweets over time.

Figure 3. Distribution of PA tweets between bots (red) and not bots (blue) over time.

Figure 4. Distribution of PA tweets between actors propagating negative stance narratives (red) and positive stance narratives (green) over time.

Figure 5. All-communication network for users shows the prevalence of positive stance users (green agents) over negative stance users (red agents).

Figure 6. Number of documents per BEND category.

Table 4. Examples for dismiss, distract, distort, and dismay

Dismiss	Terrifying: YouTube Bans Sen. Ron Johnson-For Discussing Treatment Of COVID-19.
Distract	Shortly after Austria became a country to make covid vaccines compulsory, the EU chief calls for dispensing with the Nuremberg Code and making vaccination mandatory across Europe. Here is EU chief hanging out with Pfizer CEO
Distort	Not a single word from Joe Biden about naturally acquired immunity, which the latest data shows is more durable than the vaccine, and an estimated 100 million Americans already have-There is no scientific justification for the omission. It’s dishonest. They don’t care.
Dismay	New Zealand goes into absolute madness over 1 Delta infection. Haven’t they heard the Vax is a failure & Delta is not dangerous to healthy people, especially if make HCQ & IVM available over the counter. Vax far worse than treated Delta.

Table 5. Examples for explain, enhance, excite, and engage

Explain	FDA Panelist on Vaccinating Kids: ‘We’re Never Gonna Learn About How Safe the Vaccine Is Until We Start Giving It’
Enhance	No one should be forced to take a COVID vaccine if it would violate the sanctity of their conscience” Archbishop Timothy Broglio @scotus ruled “religious beliefs need not be acceptable, logical, consistent, or comprehensible to others to merit #1A protection.”
Excite	Pennsylvania Senate, on a 29–20 vote, just passed #SB618 banning vaccine passports and mask mandates for government agencies and schools/universities.
Engage	Can we report him for misinformation? :-) Just like he said vaccinated people wont get covid…. - no wonder people start to have 0 faith in what government says today…

Table 6. Examples of neutralize, nuke, narrow, and neglect

Neutralize	THE CDC HAS NO DAM BUSINESS LYING ABOUT ANY VIRUS! THE FLU IS THE FLU. SWINE FLU KILLED 48 THOUSAND CITIZENS BEFORE THE CDC WITHDREW THAT VACCINE.SARS IS ANOTHER ONE. MADE IN A LAB. HOW MANY OF YOU STILL BELIEVE IN THIS BULLSHIT!
Nuke	@POTUS and his corrupt administration brainwashing children to take a vaccine that does more harm to them than good! Any doctor doing this should lose their license and @JoeBiden should be in prison for crimes against humanity! Absolutely sickening and disgusting!
Narrow	The idea of Vaccine Passport is unsound. It violates your Health Privacy, infringes on your personal freedom, coerces against your will & discriminates toward minorities & those ineligible for a vaccine.
Neglect	Vaccinated employees get a vaccination logo just like the Nazi’s forced Jewish people to wear a gold star. Vaccine passports & mask mandates create discrimination against unvaxxed people who trust their immune systems to a virus that is 99% survivable.

Table 7. Examples for build, back, boost, and bridge

Build	MN Families: Democrats introduced legislation to strip parents of their rights to exempt their child from ANY vaccine (or future vax). They want total control over your children.
Back	The NFL is 95% vaccinated, the NBA is 97% vaccinated, the NHL is nearly 100% vaccinated. All three leagues are still overwhelmed with covid cases & hitting new covid case highs. So how is @JoeBiden arguing vaccines will end covid? The pro sports leagues prove that’s 100% a lie.
Boost	The WHOLE POINT in being against vax passports is not bc we care about going to gyms or restaurants. The POINT is that we should never ever ever submit to a social credit system in which the government gets to decide what behaviors merit total access to society. DO YOU GET IT?
Bridge	Governments and Pharma companies may have liability protection from vaccine damage, but will it be extended to private companies? If one is coerced to take the “vaccine” to interact with these private companies are they not liable?