Written by Group 26: Julia Geerts, Jeanine Klomp, Noé Simon, Rumyana Todorova & Zoë Verwers
Social media is used a lot by people to either spread their opinions, like ideas of others or to check on what is happening in the world. We have all seen the disastrous Tweets of President Donald Trump on Twitter in which he often shares his poorly argumentative outspoken ideas. As part of the Republican party in the United States, he is representing the ideas and opinions of their orientation. While Democrats are focusing on values such as empathy and understanding between people, Republicans believe that respect and fear have core importance in the values of humanity. No matter what your own political view is, we can all agree there is a core difference in the values between those two sides.
Similarly in Europe, there are differences in the political orientations between the countries, as displayed in the map below. As we can see from the map, the Netherlands has a majority of liberal-oriented politicians. There is a history of Dutch political figures framing different social groups within this liberal view, such as a very outspoken view towards migrants (van der Haar, 2013).
Source: Guardian Research, 2015
Framing in politics
The framing of a particular standpoint is not something new in politics. The effect of confirmation bias ( the tendency to search for and favor information that supports one’s beliefs) is the basis of how different political groups will respond to certain issues. If it meets their own beliefs and values, the ‘information’ is presented in a positive light as ‘facts’, if it does not – information will be found and be presented as a big negative issue. Let’s take a simple example. In 2012, the then Queen Beatrix of the Netherlands wore a headscarf while visiting Abu Dhabi. Geert Wilders, leader of Party for Freedom (PVV), with outspoken anti-Muslim ideas, framed this in such a way that the Queen “legitimizes the oppression of women” (The Guardian, 2012). Prime minister Mark Rutte defended the Queen saying that there were “requirements that need to be respected” when her majesty visited a house of worship.
Politicians in the corona crisis
Looking into the current corona crisis, politicians have contrasting ideas on how to handle the situation or to make up the best policy together. Politicians from opposed parties present their ideas on Twitter in different ways, with mixed responses. One might wonder to what extent the Tweets from official politicians are in line with measurable facts. Thus, this blog will try to explain to what extent the political orientation of political parties influence the accuracy of claims in Tweets about COVID-19. With this in mind, we can explore to what degree the political background of these sources influence the fakeness and spread of information on Twitter.
From a larger database provider by Pointer, we made a selection of 625 Tweets by political parties and official politicians related to the corona crisis. We decided to focus on the amount of misinformation within these Tweets, and the claims made within a peculiar frame. We have checked the scientific ground on which the claims are made, and checked the statistics and dates related to the information in the Tweets (108 in total, according to the indicated time per team member). We have written down our entire method section in this report.
What is true or not?
Overall, the Tweets that were fact-checked were (mostly) true. There were no special right or left-wing political parties that were ‘lying’ and purposely spreading misinformation. The statements which are presented as facts are mostly completely true with informational and supportive images, directly copied from a news source or an official governmental organization.
However, it is interesting to detect that in some examples certain information is left out, sources are not traceable, or information is framed in favor of the political party that presents the information. Many of the Tweets contained more opinionated emotional corona-related claims, which cannot necessarily be fact-checked. With some statements that are spread out by the politicians, there is a thin line to distinguish whether the information is presented as a fact or an opinion. Vague, unmeasurable terms are used which can be debatable if they are close to the truth or are guesses or presented as predictions.
A politician from the Piratenpartij, Matthijs Pontier, Tweeted about a healthcare professional (Rachel) who died because she had to help patients in elderly homes unprotected. He then stated that a lot of deaths could have been prevented as people still work unprotected. It is indeed true this woman passed away as a consequence of COVID-19. However, the care home she worked at, stated that there were protection materials for the employees to work with. Moreover, they followed all rules and guidelines as provided by the RIVM. Besides that, we do not know whether her life had been saved under different circumstances. Healthcare workers cannot really maintain social distance from the people they work with. Thus, we can conclude that this Tweet does not fall in the category of a fact, but is presented as if.
Additionally, politicians often steer towards certain policy changes for which the societal impact is still unknown. Future claims or suggestions made by the politicians of different parties about the possible results due to Corona, are because of missing related evidence, not clearly presented as opinions, but often displayed as future (definitive) results. A Tweet from Marijnissen (SP) stated that caretakers needed to make decisions between life and death because of the low capacity of Coronatests. This relates to the ‘’black scenario’’ where doctors actually need to decide who can live and who not when people are arriving at intensive care and there is no space for them anymore. However, this was not the case when this was tweeted, and therefore this tweet is labeled as false information.
A missing context
Moreover, especially in our subset, some Tweets included a personal opinion of the political leader, which probably a lot of people believed and took as truthful. Therefore, there were a few Tweets that did have a ‘half true’ status. The reason for that is that they have either used a picture that is untraceable or they have used statements that were very unclear or taken out of context. A tweet by Geert Wilders (PVV), is a great portrayal of how information can still be misleading in a certain way, without presenting actual false information.
In the video, Geert Wilders mentioned that: “according to American, Japanese, and Chinese studies it is shown that the chance of corona infections outside is many times smaller compared to corona infections inside. One study even showed that 2 out of 7423 corona infections take place outside”. This sounds promising, but only a little information is given in this video. Firstly, we cannot track down the studies that Geert Wilders is talking about. He only mentioned the results of the studies, but omits where he found the information and studies. Therefore, he could say anything he wants without the information being able to fact-check. Similarly, Mahir Alkaya who is a member of the Socialist Party made the following claim: “Rutte not only supports small- and medium-sized enterprises but also invests billions in large companies. In the meantime, they are already talking about cuts …”. Mahir is accusing Mark Rutte, supporting his standpoint that money should be taken away from big corporate businesses, without really giving any context about this measure providing support.
Linking to non-scientific journalistic headlines
Next to that, some journalistic articles that are used in the Tweets as proof are also very opinion-based, written with a political orientation in mind or having click-bait titles, strengthening a specific argument given by a belief of a party. In this Tweet, FvD is trying to make a convincing argument with the help of an exaggerating headline from De Telegraaf. The headline of the article leans toward clickbait, while the article itself is a very vague prediction, not providing more information or details of this argument given in the Tweet.
Conclusion
To conclude, these aforementioned tactics of presenting the Tweets are not noticeably different by left or right-winged parties. Our general conclusion is that it is hard to distinguish real existing, factual claims, and future suggestions/predictions within Tweets. Politicians, both left and right-winged, use smart convincing tactics and techniques to convince audiences to confirm their own point of view around the corona policy. Opinionated criticism against certain measures is also present in our database of Tweets. And although we support politicians to be critical, this can also lead to heavy criticism against the facts presented by the governmental institutes.
What should we take into account when reading COVID-Tweets from Politicians
This implies that corona news on Twitter should be carefully considered by journalists as well as general audiences. As Twitter is a platform in which stories and news can travel fast, it is important to take into account all political parties have a bias and belief they are spreading on this platform. Newsrooms and journalists should be aware of how accessible exaggerating beliefs about a sensitive topic as the coronavirus, are created on Twitter. Twitter is not always the same as public opinion, as it can create a false sense of the ‘truth’ when a few people fastly spread a strong opinion about a topic. It is therefore important to also know that users connect with political figures they believe in, with similar hold views, and are less likely to see different opinions and issues. With such a sensitive topic as the coronavirus, a reliable, neutral information database and news providers are necessary, and politicians should refer to those sources with the related information they spread.
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