Misrepresenting Scientific Consensus on COVID-19: The Amplification of Dissenting Scientists on Twitter

Abstract: The COVID-19 pandemic has resulted in a slew of misinformation, often described as an "infodemic". Whereas previous research has focused on the propagation of unreliable sources as a main vehicle of misinformation, the present study focuses on exploring the role of scientists whose views oppose the scientific consensus. Using Nobelists in Physiology and Medicine as a proxy for scientific consensus, we analyze two separate datasets: 15.8K tweets by 13.1K unique users on COVID-19 vaccines specifically, and 208K tweets by 151K unique users on COVID-19 broadly which mention the Nobelist names. Our analyses reveal that dissenting scientists are amplified by a factor of 426 relative to true scientific consensus in the context of COVID-19 vaccines, and by a factor of 43 in the context of COVID-19 generally. Although more popular accounts tend to mention consensus-abiding scientists more, our results suggest that this false consensus is driven by higher engagement with dissent-mentioning tweets. Furthermore, false consensus mostly occurs due to traffic spikes following highly popularized statements of dissenting scientists. We find that dissenting voices are mainly discussed in French, English-speaking, Turkish, Brazilian, Argentine, Indian, and Japanese misinformation clusters. This research suggests that social media platforms should prioritize the exposure of consensus-abiding scientists as a vehicle of reversing false consensus and addressing misinformation stemming from seemingly credible sources.