Table 2.
Results of the regular expression filtering step. After filtering using regular expressions on tweets spanning January 21 to May 8, 2020, the number of tweets per conspiracy theory and the number of tweets that were included in multiple theories are shown. The number of tweets within each filtered data set that were later classified as COVID-19 misinformation and the number of classified tweets that appear in multiple theories are also provided.
| Conspiracy theory | Tweets after regular expression filtering (n=1,901,108), n (%) | Tweets after regular expression filtering found in multiple theories, n (%) | Tweets classified as COVID-19 misinformation, n (%) | Tweets classified as COVID-19 misinformation found in multiple theories, n (%) |
| 5Ga | 127,209 (6.69) | 6300 (4.95) | 51,049 (40.13) | 1984 (1.56) |
| Gatesb | 278,130 (14.63) | 69,566 (25.01) | 147,657 (53.09) | 35,880 (12.90) |
| Labc | 526,115 (27.64) | 44,198 (8.40) | 224,052 (42.59) | 20,001 (3.80) |
| Vaxd | 969,654 (51.00) | 82,380 (8.50) | 206,046 (21.25) | 34,435 (3.55) |
a5G: conspiracy theories related to 5G technology.
bGates: conspiracy theories related to Bill Gates or the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.
cLab: conspiracy theories related to SARS-CoV-2 being laboratory-released or human-made.
dVax: conspiracy theories related to vaccines.