Spatial and historical drivers of fake news diffusion: Evidence from anti-Muslim discrimination in India

Abstract

What drives the propagation of discriminatory fake news? To answer this question, this paper focuses on India at the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic: on March 30, a Muslim convention (the Tablighi Jamaat) in New Delhi became publicly recognized as a COVID hotspot. Using Twitter data, we build a comprehensive novel dataset of georeferenced tweets to identify anti-Muslim fake news. First, we document that fake news about Muslims intentionally spreading the virus spiked after March 30. Then, we investigate the geographical and historical determinants of the spread of fake news in a difference-in-difference setting. We find that the diffusion of anti-Muslim false stories was more pronounced (i) in districts closer to New Delhi, suggesting that fake news spread spatially; and (ii) in districts exposed to historical attacks by Muslim groups, suggesting that the propensity to disseminate fake news has deep-rooted historical origins.