Disinformation about the COVID-19 virus published by Chinese and Russian state media in France, Spain and Germany is reaching a larger audience on social media than news about the global pandemic produced by major media outlets in their respective countries, according to a study by the Oxford Internet Institute (OII).
The study, published on June 29 of this year by OII, found that the international Russian news network RT (Russia Today) has increased engagement levels for articles on Twitter and Facebook with reporting on the coronavirus in French by up to five times, compared to the leading French daily - "Le Monde".
Meanwhile, Chinese radio station China Radio International (CTI) has generated four times more engagement per article than the leading Spanish newspaper El Pais.
"Many of these publications, supported by the respective states, combine reputable reports based on false or misleading facts about the coronavirus, which can create great uncertainty among the public audience about the COVID-19 pandemic," said OII research assistant Katarina Rebello.
Co-author of the study, OII director Philip Howard, said that along with Russia and China, state media from Iran and Turkey are also aiming to reach "French, German and Spanish users of French social media with news about the Corona virus."
OII researchers found that misinformation varied depending on the language and country of the source.
For example, publications distributed by Russian media about the Corona virus in French and German “constantly reported on allegedly weak democratic institutions and civil disorder in Europe.”
Russian and Iranian media outlets produced “polarizing content” intended for Spanish-speaking social media users in the United States and Latin America.
Meanwhile, Chinese and Turkish media promoted their countries, presenting them as “world leaders” in the fight against the pandemic. They were mainly published in Spanish.
OII, during the research, studied publications from Russia's RT and Sputnik, China's Global Television Network, Chinese radio "China Radio International" and the Chinese news agency Xinhua, along with content from Iranian and Turkish media.
The research was based on the 20 most popular publications of each media outlet from May 18 to June 5 of this year. A previous OII study found that heavily politicized news from some state media outlets from Russia, China, Iran and Turkey could have 10 times the impact of Western news outlets such as the British public broadcaster – the BBC.