Social media amplification loops and false alarms: Towards a Sociotechnical understanding of misinformation during emergencies

Abstract

ABSTRACT the immediate aftermath of crisis events, there is a pressing demand among the public for information about what is unfolding. In such moments “information holes” occur, people and organizations collaborate to try to fill these in real time by sharing information. In this article, we approach such gaps not merely as the product of the actual lack of information, but as generated by the algorithmically underpinned social media platforms as such, and by the user behaviors that they proliferate. The lack of information is the result of the noisy and fragmented patchwork of information that social media platforms can generate. In this paper, we draw on a case study of one particular case of a false terrorism alarm and its unfolding on Twitter, that took place in London’s Oxford Circus underground station in November of 2017. Using a combination of computational and interpretive methods – analyzing social network structure as well as textual expressions – we find that certain logics of platforms may affect emergency management and the work of emergency responders negatively.