Cross-platform spread: vaccine-related content, sources, and conspiracy theories in YouTube videos shared in early Twitter COVID-19 conversations

Figures & data

Figure 1. Data set combination, filtering, and exclusion process.

Table 1. Content and sources of the 20 most tweeted YouTube videos

Rank by number of tweets	Source	Type of source	Title	Length in minutes	Number of views	Date posted	Number of comments	Opposed	Conspiracy theory
1	RT America	Russian government international TV network	The CDC is actually a vaccine company – Robert F. Kennedy Jr	12:46	218,620	1/31 2020	1,740	Y	Y
2	Peak Prosperity	US blog, financial information	Coronavirus, the potential for a vaccine, and the cytokine storm!	22:57	279,443	5/11 2020	3,209	Y	Y
3	Brodel Nation	US blog pro-Trump	Dr Judy Mikovits, PhD interview	3:18	1,450	4/26 2020	11	Y	Y
4	All Express News	NTD, anti-Chinese government US-based organization	Coronavirus Covid19 China First. The US and the World Next	10:46	1,727	2/10 2020	2	N	N
5	Corbett report	Vlog, Japan-based Canadian	Bill Gates’ Plan to Vaccinate the World	28:01	514,319	5/8 2020	9,684	Y	Y
6	Guardian News	UK newspaper	Donald Trump says coronavirus will ‘go away without a vaccine’	0:58	318,573	5/9 2020	1,801	Y	N
7	Corbett report	Vlog, Japan-based Canadian	Bill Gates and the Population Control Grid	36:47	544,538	5/17 2020	8,050	Y	Y
8	Corbett report	Vlog, Japan-based Canadian	Corona World Order	59:16	227,906	4/10 2020	4,169	Y	Y
9	Psych Hunter	Independent/ Unknown	Psychiatry: Science or Fraud	4:52	33,144	9/8/ 2009	0	N	Y
10	Corbett Report	Vlog, Japan-based Canadian	Meet Bill Gates	38:45	782,374	5/24 2020	9,640	Y	Y
11	CNBC	US TV news network	UK scientist makes coronavirus vaccine breakthrough, reports Sky News	6:52	413,246	2/5 2020	1,080	Y	N
12	Eschatology Explorer	Independent/ Unknown	Agenda 21: Global Depopulation, Global Enslavement, One World Totalitarian Government (Hindi)	16:12	256	2/21 2020	5	Y	Y
13	Informed Consent Action Network	Anti-vaccination advocacy organization	Did CDC approve a vaccine that causes heart attacks?	2:33	9,108	3/19 2018	54	Y	Y
14	Autism Media Channel	Anti-vaccination advocacy organization	CDC Whistleblower Revealed	9:30	207,647	8/26 2014	693	Y	Y
15	Corbett report	Vlog, Japan-based Canadian	How Bill Gates Monopolized Global Health	23:57	1,136,774	6/10 2020	7,584	Y	Y
16	CNBC	US TV	Trump visits NIH vaccine research center amid coronavirus spread in the US – 3/3/2020	23:49	68,449	3/3 2020	323	N	N
17	Peggy Hall-The Health American	Vlog of Peggy Hall, an anti-masks and anti vaccination advocate	[Removed]	[Removed]	[Removed]		[Removed]	Y	N
18	The White House	White House	03/03/20: President Trump Delivers Remarks Upon Arrival	6:37	35,925	3/3 2020	[Disabled]	N	N
19	Construuct	Conspiracy theories YouTube channel	PENTAGON BRIEFING ON REMOVING THE GOD GENE – “FUNVAX”	4:15	236,792	4/2/ 2012	8	Y	Y
20	Ben Swann	Anti-vaccine advocate	FOLLOW THE MONEY Because Here Comes the MANDATORY Coronavirus Vaccine	7:57	50,656	4/19 2020	654	Y	Y

Table 2. Tweets spreading the 20 most tweeted YouTube videos

Rank	Original YouTube video title	Number of Unique tweets with video	Number of Unique texts of tweets	Number of Unique users that tweet video	Average number of non-reply mentions in tweets with video	Number of Retweets of tweets with video	Number of days between first and last tweet of video	Number of Tweets within first hour of first tweet
1	‘The CDC is actually a vaccine company’ Robert F. Kennedy Jr	89	32	84	1.1 ± 1.6	40	134	6
2	Coronavirus, the potential for a vaccine, and the cytokine storm!	64	27	59	0.88 ± 0.45	6	2	25
3	Dr Judy Mikovits, PhD interview	30	11	18	1.57 ± 0.76	40	12	1
4	Coronavirus Covid19 China First. The US and the World Next	54	18	1	0.0 ± 0.0	0	10	6
5	Bill Gates’ Plan to Vaccinate the World	59	12	8	1.58 ± 1.14	3	35	1
6	Donald Trump says coronavirus will ‘go away without a vaccine’	3	3	3	2.0 ± 2.16	63	0	2
7	Bill Gates and the Population Control Grid	52	9	7	1.5 ± 0.93	0	27	1
8	Corona World Order	42	2	1	1.62 ± 0.69	0	20	1
9	Psychiatry: Science or Fraud	23	5	1	2.13 ± 1.51	0	91	1
10	Meet Bill Gates	34	3	3	1.624 ± 0.77	0	20	1
11	UK scientist makes coronavirus vaccine breakthrough, reports Sky News	18	8	18	0.72 ± 0.45	4	28	2
12	Agenda 21: Global Depopulation, Global Enslavement, One World Totalitarian Government (Hindi)	22	1	1	4.27 ± 9.03	0	0	22
13	Did CDC approve a vaccine that causes heart attacks?	16	2	2	0.25 ± 0.97	4	4	1
14	CDC Whistleblower Revealed	20	15	2	1.15 ± 2.78	2	104	4
15	How Bill Gates Monopolized Global Health	28	11	7	1.68 ± 1.28	0	19	7
16	Trump visits NIH vaccine research center amid coronavirus spread in the US – 3/3/2020	18	10	15	1.39 ± 1.29	1	0	8
17	[Removed]	29	1	1	2.76 ± 8.93	0	0	29
18	03/03/20: President Trump Delivers Remarks Upon Arrival	8	8	7	0.87 ± 1.27	12	1	1
19	PENTAGON BRIEFING ON REMOVING THE GOD GENE. -’FUNVAX’	24	1	1	1.29 ± 1.21	0	0	24
20	FOLLOW THE MONEY Because here comes the MANDATORY Coronavirus Vaccine	1	1	1	0.0 ± 0.0	17	0	1

Table 3. Topics of YouTube transcripts by order of magnitude

Topic	Topic descriptions	Number of videos	Vaccine sentiment	5 G	Autism	Gates
1	Vaccines infringe on individual freedom, big government	310	Opposed	36, 12.6%	16, 5.1%	86, 27.7%
2	Coronavirus vaccine medical trials	235	Mixed	4, 1.7%	1, 0.4%	7, 2.9%
3	Coronavirus news by world leaders	232	Neutral	7, 3.0%	0, 0%	12, 5.1%
4	Coronavirus outbreak news, epidemiological information	187	Neutral/pro	4, 2.1%	2, 1.0%	15, 8.0%
5	Vaccines cause autism conspiracies	93	Opposed	9, 9.7%	52, 55.9%	14, 15.0%
6	General health and conspiracies	61	Mixed	11, 18.0%	5, 8.2%	12, 19.6%
7	Information on viruses including conspiracies	59	Mixed	4, 6.7%	10, 16.9%	5, 8.4%
8	Conspiracy theories, Bill Gates, 5 G	47	Opposed	8, 17.0%	3, 6.4%	41, 87.2%
9	News on economic markets	19	Mixed	3, 15.7%	0, 0%	3, 15.8%
10	Flu vaccine and mask wearing conspiracies	15	Opposed/mixed	1, 6.7%	1, 6.6%	0, 0%
11	Christian content & conspiracies	14	Opposed/neutral	3, 21%	0, 0%	3, 21.4%
12	Coronavirus research, including conspiracies	8	Opposed/mixed	0, 0%	0, 0%	2, 25.0%
Total		1,280		90	90	200

Figure 2. Word clouds of the most common terms from the YouTube video transcript topics. A word’s relative size indicates its relative usage for a given topic of transcripts (larger = more usage).

Figure 3. Temporal heatmap of the YouTube transcript topics used in each week of the data. A darker cell indicates a greater proportion of YouTube videos from that topic being used that week.

Table

LDA	Latent Dirichlet Allocation
URL	Uniform Resource Locator

Table

Topic Number	20 Most Probable Topic Words
1	Right, want, come, time, mean, look, tell, let, happen, way, day, world, good, year, United States, try, need, trump, guy, start
2	Virus, work, antibody, coronavirus, test, trial, cell, year, phase, different, develop, time, right, protein, human, company, need, start, look, mean
3	Country, United States, work, world, China, need, health, government, want, good, time, question, today, come, year, coronavirus, global, state, great, look
4	Virus, coronavirus, case, number, test, time, disease, death, spread, look, come, mean, infection, flu, day, need, right, infect, way, rate
5	Child, year, study, polio, cause, look, time, come, vaccination, mean, want, vaccinate, disease, kid, CDC, doctor, autism, tell, right, start
6	Right, look, kind, way, want, work, different, system, need, come, time, point, good, try, mean, vitamin, food, technology, level, basically
7	Virus, cell, human, aids, disease, paper, research, look, body, cause, come, find, lab, year, mean, HIV, Wuhan, time, animal, protein
8	Bill gates, world, gates foundation, health, control, gate, global, year, million, billion, government, population, dollar, coronavirus, new, foundation, fund, gates, report, work
9	Look, right, market, guy, let, want, short, come, big, money, little, break, time, today, dollar, price, percent, stock, long, way
10	Flu, mask, swine, shoot, year, United States, shot, good, government, million, kill, claim, doctor, tell, die, time, program, face, case, disease
11	God, come, Jesus, bible, lord, man, time, verse, day, word, Christian, want, pay, shall, Israel, chapter, mark, world, church, beast
12	Patient, drug, chloroquine, doctor, hospital, coronavirus, oxygen, test, treatment, need, day, treat, immune system, India, work, blood, Africa, die, zinc, medicine