COVID-19 Misinformation and Social Network Crowdfunding: Cross-sectional Study of Alternative Treatments and Antivaccine Mandates

• Published in: Journal of medical Internet research 2022-07, Vol.24 (7), p.e38395-e38395
• Main Authors: Shaw, Nathan M, Hakam, Nizar, Lui, Jason, Abbasi, Behzad, Sudhakar, Architha, Leapman, Michael S, Breyer, Benjamin N
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Alternatives; Campaigns; Communication; Coronaviruses; COVID-19; COVID-19 - epidemiology; Cross-Sectional Studies; Crowdsourcing; Donations; False information; Fund raising; Funding; Health care; Health services utilization; Help seeking behavior; Humans; Immunization; Internet; Ivermectin; Masking; Masks; Medical personnel; Medical treatment; Misinformation; Narratives; Original Paper; Pandemics; Social Networking; Social networks; Traditional medicine; Vitamin D
• ISSN: 1438-8871; 1439-4456; 1438-8871
• DOI: 10.2196/38395

Crowdfunding is increasingly used to offset the financial burdens of illness and health care. In the era of the COVID-19 pandemic and associated infodemic, the role of crowdfunding to support controversial COVID-19 stances is unknown. We sought to examine COVID-19-related crowdfunding focusing on the funding of alternative treatments not endorsed by major medical entities, including campaigns with an explicit antivaccine, antimask, or antihealth care stances. We performed a cross-sectional analysis of GoFundMe campaigns for individuals requesting donations for COVID-19 relief. Campaigns were identified by key word and manual review to categorize campaigns into "Traditional treatments," "Alternative treatments," "Business-related," "Mandate," "First Response," and "General." For each campaign, we extracted basic narrative, engagement, and financial variables. Among those that were manually reviewed, the additional variables of "mandate type," "mandate stance," and presence of COVID-19 misinformation within the campaign narrative were also included. COVID-19 misinformation was defined as "false or misleading statements," where cited evidence could be provided to refute the claim. Descriptive statistics were used to characterize the study cohort. A total of 30,368 campaigns met the criteria for final analysis. After manual review, we identified 53 campaigns (0.17%) seeking funding for alternative medical treatment for COVID-19, including popularized treatments such as ivermectin (n=14, 26%), hydroxychloroquine (n=6, 11%), and vitamin D (n=4, 7.5%). Moreover, 23 (43%) of the 53 campaigns seeking support for alternative treatments contained COVID-19 misinformation. There were 80 campaigns that opposed mandating masks or vaccination, 48 (60%) of which contained COVID-19 misinformation. Alternative treatment campaigns had a lower median amount raised (US $1135) compared to traditional (US $2828) treatments (P