ABSTRACT
The pandemic has accelerated the pervasiveness of social media as tools to obviate the need for social relations; however, they have also contributed to the spread of fake news characterised by conspiracy-type narratives. The chapter analyses the role of Twitter in reinforcing informational cascades related to multiple conspiracy theories such as the flat Earth, and the COVID-19-5G theories.
The empirical investigation was organised in successive phases which led to the identification of the relationships between the different theories and their diffusion on Twitter.
The analysis of tweets carried with DMI-TCAT shows a significant correlation among multiple conspiracy theories, which reinforce the hypothesis of an informational cascade effect as a main vector to spread misinformation.
Conspiracy theories represent today a great challenge to be fought as misinformed people are more prone to make errors of judgment which can have serious consequences for the public sphere debate and for the society as a whole.
The chapter contributes to the debate around infodemic and the role of social networks in reinforcing or preventing such a pervasive phenomenon especially in time of a global sanitary emergency.
