Exploring the psychological motivation fuelling COVID-19 infodemic: A population-based study.

WORLD Health Organization; BIONTECH SE; PFIZER Inc.

Despite efforts of legitimate health education, fake news related to COVID-19 are prevalent in the social media. Our study seek to explore and understand the human psychology that fuels the propagation of myths and misconception of COVID-19 in the Malaysian context. Search for posts, videos, or articles from individuals or groups related to COVID-19 and Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine fake news was performed using Google and Facebook from March 1^st, 2021 till March 31^st, 2021. Articles describing the contradicting information, or were against the standard set by the Ministry of Health Malaysia and the World Health Organization were regarded as fake news. A specified key terms in both English and local Malay language were used: "Pfizer AEFI", "Pfizer in Malaysia", "COVID-19" and "COVID in Malaysia". Thematic analyses were performed on the retrieved results. There were a total of 30 posts and/or articles been considered fake news with regards to COVID-19 and Pfizer BioNTech vaccine were retrieved: 11 were from Google search that links to mostly online tabloids, and 19 were from various Facebook postings. Elements of fear-mongering, motivated cognition, cognitive bias, and naïve realism were evident. Misleading COVID-19 information may delude the general public and instil doubts towards the authorities. Curiously, none of the retrieved article and/or postings were authored by credentialed individuals or health professionals working directly with COVID-19 patients, or were involved with national policy-making, yet still gained massive audience, public engagement and support. Therefore, the public should be reminded to practice caution when they are streaming online to avoid falling for malicious social propaganda. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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