[Thread on Coronavirus and Disinfo] 1/ This one really astounds me. Another verified account, this one an actual republican politician @JWrightforCA34, tweeted a conspiracy theory (aka disinformation) That corona virus was likely created by a deep state cabal. All the tropes 
2/ are there, antisemitism - Wright claims George Soros is likely involved, along with the Hillary Clinton and the Pope (wtf). Wright has since deleted the tweet, although she has been trying to backslide on Twitter. You can read more on the story here latimes.com/california/sto…
3/ A few things are worth mentioning. Despite being a high profile endorser of this conspiracy @JWrightforCA34 can't be held responsible for starting to deep state cabal corona virus theory. Even a cursory search on Twitter for "soros + coronvirus" reveals this goes back to Jan
@JWrightforCA34 4/ However @JWrightforCA34 elevated the theory to the mainstream - kind of. Those mentionining Soros OR Clinton OR Gates + Coronavirus are a voluminous community (some are in jest or irrelevant but most are endorsing the conspiracy) Watch it spread - like a virus...
@JWrightforCA34 5/ After @JWrightforCA34 deleted the tweet, it was satirised by @TheRickWilson - who wrote the following tweet: What's interesting though, is that the fake news didn't lose it's momentum. See next tweet....
@JWrightforCA34 @TheRickWilson 6/ Of around 11,000 tweets, replies and mentions mentioning "Soros" + "Corona or Coronavirus", you can see the most the popular tweet was @therickwilson's sardonic tweet (The green spike).However, you will notice after this a few other spikes, 99freemind , reubing, juliansrum etc
@JWrightforCA34 @TheRickWilson 7/ These are all MAGA accounts or Qanon accounts, or WWG1WGA accounts. All pushing the trope that somehow Soros is pushing the Corona Virus to short the global economy and get rich. Also, according to Amazing Polly, the Queen is involved, presumably the monarch not the band
@JWrightforCA34 @TheRickWilson 8/ It is worth adding that the previous graph shows a sample of data extracted only after @JWrightforCA34 had deleted her tweet, which is why we don't see that particular tweet registering
@JWrightforCA34 @TheRickWilson 9/ Maybe it goes without saying, but I am going to say it anyway, the most cohesive community spreading the 'coronovirus is a conspiracy led by Soros, the Pope, the Queen and Merkel (among others)' trope is the online MAGA, KAG and Qanon Crowd.
@JWrightforCA34 @TheRickWilson 10/ Indeed, of the around 9544 accounts with Twitter bios in the sample, 3,841 contained the terms "MAGA" OR "KAG" OR "Qanon" (+ some others). That's around 40% of the accounts. That's not necessarily surprising, given what we increasingly know about the 'online MAGA movement'
@JWrightforCA34 @TheRickWilson 11/ What I find amusing is that although the Pope is apparently involved in this conspiracy, and therefore unlikely to contract Corona, a fake news story yesterday claiming that the Pope had caught Corona was mostly shared by similar MAGA accounts.
@JWrightforCA34 @TheRickWilson 12/ I think a big takeaway of this is how #coronavirus is being weaponized to demonize political enemies across the goal. Only yesterday a journalist based in Saudi claimed that Corona was spread through Qatari funding. Viral misinformation about a virus is the new biowarfare
@JWrightforCA34 @TheRickWilson 13/ Some takeaways: 1) Online MAGA movement continue to spread conspiracies about spread of #coronavirus 2) A candidate for congress in the US breathed new life into the conspiracies 3) Actors across globe weaponizing narratives of Corona to suit political agenda
@JWrightforCA34 @TheRickWilson 14/ Also, let's be clear about this. This all works to Trump's advantage. He has already claimed the virus was a hoax (but not provided details of how). This is actually useful strategically. It activates the conspiracy or hoax tropes without having to provide a narrative
15/ Those spreading the online disinformation can fill in the blanks with the usual tropes of Soros and global liberalism conspiracies. Trump has done his bit with the dog whistle 'hoax' politics. The rest is disinfo madlibs.
