The global spread of misinformation on spiders

Stefano Mammola (1) , Jagoba Malumbres-Olarte , Valeria Arabesky , Diego Alejandro Barrales-Alcalá , Aimee Lynn Barrion-Dupo , Marco Antonio Benamú , Tharina Bird , Maria Bogomolova , Pedro Cardoso , Maria Chatzaki (2) , Ren-Chung Cheng , Tien-Ai Chu , Leticia Classen-Rodríguez , Iva Čupić , Naufal Urfi Dhiya’ulhaq , André-Philippe Drapeau Picard , Hisham El-Hennawy , Mert Elverici , Caroline Fukushima , Zeana Ganem , Efrat Gavish-Regev , Naledi Gonnye , Axel Hacala , Charles Haddad , Thomas Hesselberg , Tammy Ai Tian Ho , Thanakorn Into , Marco Isaia , Dharmaraj Jayaraman , Nanguei Karuaera , Rajashree Khalap , Kiran Khalap , Dongyoung Kim , Tuuli Korhonen , Simona Kralj-Fišer , Heidi Land , Shou-Wang Lin , Sarah Loboda , Elizabeth Lowe , Yael Lubin , Alejandro Martínez , Zingisile Mbo , Marija Miličić , Grace Mwende Kioko , Veronica Nanni , Yusoff Norma-Rashid , Daniel Nwankwo , Christina Painting , Aleck Pang , Paolo Pantini , Martina Pavlek , Richard Pearce , Booppa Petcharad , Julien Pétillon (3, 4) , Onjaherizo Christian Raberahona , Philip Russo , Joni Saarinen , Laura Segura-Hernández , Lenka Sentenská , Gabriele Uhl , Leilani Walker , Charles Warui , Konrad Wiśniewski , Alireza Zamani , Angela Chuang , Catherine Scott (5)

1 Helsingin yliopisto = Helsingfors universitet = University of Helsinki
2 DUTH - Democritus University of Thrace
3 ECOBIO - Ecosystèmes, biodiversité, évolution [Rennes]
4 Nelson Mandela University [Port Elizabeth]
5 McGill University = Université McGill [Montréal, Canada]

In the internet era, the digital architecture that keeps us connected and informed may also amplify the spread of misinformation. This problem is gaining global attention, as evidence accumulates that misinformation may interfere with democratic processes and undermine collective responses to environmental and health crises1,2. In an increasingly polluted information ecosystem, understanding the factors underlying the generation and spread of misinformation is becoming a pressing scientific and societal challenge3. Here, we studied the global spread of (mis-)information on spiders using a high-resolution global database of online newspaper articles on spider–human interactions, covering stories of spider–human encounters and biting events published from 2010–20204. We found that 47% of articles contained errors and 43% were sensationalist. Moreover, we show that the flow of spider-related news occurs within a highly interconnected global network and provide evidence that sensationalism is a key factor underlying the spread of misinformation.

Domains: Environmental Sciences; Biodiversity and Ecology

Stefano Mammola, Jagoba Malumbres-Olarte, Valeria Arabesky, Diego Alejandro Barrales-Alcalá, Aimee Lynn Barrion-Dupo, et al.. The global spread of misinformation on spiders. Current Biology - CB, 2022, 32 (16), pp.R871-R873. ⟨10.1016/j.cub.2022.07.026⟩. ⟨hal-03776260⟩