key: cord-0078244-61xkj36t authors: Uwalaka, Temple title: ‘Abba Kyari did not die of Coronavirus’: Social media and fake news during a global pandemic in Nigeria date: 2022-05-13 journal: nan DOI: 10.1177/1329878x221101216 sha: 708a495a387af36b310050e2ac180340f466cdc5 doc_id: 78244 cord_uid: 61xkj36t This study examined the influence of fake news online on how social media users viewed and reacted to the COVID-19 pandemic in Nigeria. Analyses of an online survey (N = 254) and contents from Twitter users in Nigeria from the hashtags: ‘#coronavirusNigeria’ and ‘#covid19Nigeria’ (N = 10,408), reveal that social media users in Nigeria used Twitter to inform and educate Twitter users as well as debunking fake news stories about the virus to prevent purveyors of fake news from misleading Twitter users in Nigeria. Findings further indicate that those who use social media platforms and national television as main sources of news and are less educated, are statistically more likely to believe fake news about the virus than those who are educated and used newspapers as main sources of news. Consequently, the study recommends that Nigerian political leaders enact policies that they can observe as their inability to adhere to their own lockdowns powered fake news about COVID-19 in Nigeria. Misinformation campaigns regarding COVID-19 were on the radar of authorities at the beginning of the pandemic. For example, early in March of 2020, the World Health Organisation (WHO) acknowledged that the new coronavirus pandemic was followed by an 'infodemic' and 'tsunamis' of misinformation and disinformation (Brennen et al., 2020; Chari and Akpojivi, 2021; WHO, 2020) . According to WHO, the coronavirus outbreak and response has been accompanied by a massive over-abundance of information, some accurate and some not so accurate, making it hard for people to find trustworthy sources and reliable guidance about the virus (WHO, 2020) . However, misinformation about science and health is not new and neither is it unique to COVID-19. In an unusual global health crisis, many policymakers, journalists and academics have echoed WHO's worries and underscored that misinformation about the COVID-19 pandemic presents significant public health risks (Brennen et al., 2020) . There is a growing apprehension about the impact of fake news and fake COVID-19 cures circulating on social media platforms on the society. These fake news and fake cures have a devastating influence on the society as they flood social media platforms with unprofessional advice that leads to a surge in cases and fatalities (Zhou et al., 2020) . Fake news diminishes the quality and number of accurate and trustworthy information that people consume, particularly on social media platforms. Although fake news is not new, it has become widespread owing to the popularisation of social media platforms in recent years (Apuke and Omar, 2020a; Zhou et al., 2020) . This is because social media platforms permit instantaneous interaction and diffusion of new ideas. This instant interaction helps social media users to disseminate news via shares, likes, or retweets. Therefore, they are regularly exposed to overwhelming information, particularly news that emanates from private writers. It has been argued that social media is a place to disseminate dis/misinformation rapidly (Apuke and Omar, 2020a). Studies have shown that social media is a prominent device for the dissemination of a substantial amount of raw and unrefined content (Apuke and Omar, 2020a; Lazer et al., 2018) ; sanctioning a misinformation phenomenon and consequently exacerbating the possibility of manipulating users' view of reality via the spreading of fake news content (Ireton and Posetti, 2018) . Fake news dissemination has become pervasive as social media platforms increasingly become easy to share. This indicates that both influential and not-so influential individuals engage in the proliferation of fake news (Rampersad and Althiyabi, 2020) . Consequently, fake news has affected practically every corner of the world and almost all aspects of people's lives (Wasserman and Madrid-Morales, 2019) . The most disturbing, remains the spreading of fake news and fake cures during a pandemic such as a coronavirus pandemic (Hou et al., 2020) . Even with the increasingly devastating nature of the virus, recent studies have demonstrated that rumours and fake news stories are still circulating about the coronavirus. Due to these fake news stories, it is becoming increasingly difficult to discern and differentiate fake news from reports whose authenticity should not be questioned (Huynh, 2020) . It has been noted that since the coronavirus surfaced, there has been a proliferation of fake news online, and many of these fake news recommended preventive cures and tips on how to cope with the virus (Pennycook et al., 2020) . These dis/misinformation about the virus, pushed on social media, have fuelled concern among members of the public concerning the pandemic, forcing governments and authorities to encourage citizens to verify the veracity of news stories before sharing them (Hou et al., 2020; Huynh, 2020) . It has been suggested that fake news regarding health issues constitutes a danger to public health (Apuke and Omar, 2020a). Yet, the rationale for the spread of fake news has not been adequately explained (Waszak et al., 2018) . Consequently, the growth of fake news dissemination, particularly during this pandemic, requires widespread research to grasp the nature and reasons behind fake news sharing on social media and how and who believes fake news. For example, Apuke and Omar (2020a) examined predictors of fake news proliferation while some other studies have also contributed to the literature on fake news and social media (Apuke and Omar, 2020b). While the dis/misinformation about health-related issues is not novel, the diffusion of social media has exacerbated the proliferation of contents of questionable authority in the health ecosystem. This is due to the fact that social media platforms allow users to disseminate information without much constraint (Waszak et al., 2018) . Previous studies have looked at the proliferation of fake news in general (Apuke and Omar, 2020a, 2020b; Mutsvairo and Bebawi, 2019; Tandoc et al., 2020; Wasserman and Madrid-Morales, 2019) , Fake news during the 2016 US presidential election (Allcott and Gentzkow, 2017; Carlson, 2020) , lack of trust in the mainstream media , and fake news during COVID-19 (Lampos et al., 2020; Uwalaka, 2021; Uwalaka et al., 2021) . Many of the studies utilised student samples (Lee and Ma, 2012) and have not adequately examined the fake news concepts in the Nigerian context particularly, the factors that necessitate the believability of fake news headlines. To bridge this gap and extend the discussion in the literature, this study selected Nigeria for the study and focused on general social media users who are 18 years and above in Nigeria. The reason that Nigeria is selected for this study is that it is a developing country that has been less studied (Wasserman and Madrid-Morales, 2019) , and is hit like every other place by the pandemic. Secondly, fake news and fake cure in Nigeria is thwarting medical advice, introducing false medications, inciting panic and being used for political point-scoring (Apuke and Omar, 2020a; Olapegba et al., 2020) . These are unhealthy for the health and safety of the Nigerian populace. Thus, this study investigates the effect of fake news and fake cures headlines on social media on how internet users viewed and responded to the COVID-19 pandemic in Nigeria. This is an attempt to understand the likeliness that social media users in Nigeria were able to differentiate between fake news and fake cures headlines from fact-checked news headlines and real government guidance regarding the pandemic in Nigeria. This was done by studying inferences about fact-checked news versus fake (false) news headlines in the survey data. To achieve the above aim, the study sought to answer the following research questions: (a) What is the effect of fake news and fake cures headlines on social media on how internet users view and respond to the COVID-19 pandemic in Nigeria? (b) What is the level of exposure of social media users to fake news and fake cures headlines about COVID-19 in Nigeria? (c) What are the factors that lead Nigerians to believe fake news and fake cures headlines about the COVID-19 pandemic in Nigeria? Fake newswhat is it? The fake news concept and history are evolving as it becomes more widespread and sophisticated. Fake news has historically been used by researchers to define generic mistruths such as news parody, propaganda and even misleading advertisements (Tandoc et al., 2018) . Fake news is used to discuss misinformation in some instances and disinformation in other instances. It is usually defined and discussed by research studies, and framed from either misinformation or disinformation perspectives. This dichotomy is obvious when one goes through the definitions. For example, Allcott and Gentzkow (2017) , defined fake news as news articles that are intentionally and verifiably false and could mislead readers. While Lazer et al. (2018) described fake news as 'fabricated information that mimics news media content in form but not in organisational process or intent'. Online fake news has also been described as online publications of 'intentionally or knowingly false statements of facts that are produced to serve strategic purposes and are disseminated for social influence or profit (Humprecht, 2019 (Humprecht, : 1975 . Inherent in these definitions are not only the targets and persistence of fake news but also the specific format used. This Uwalaka means that fake news comes in different formats, and is sometimes, a type of disinformation that mirrors the look and feel of news (Derakhshan and Wardle, 2017; Tandoc et al., 2020) . Recent studies use the phrase to describe a specific phenomenon, that is, misleading and bogus information deliberately presented and marketed to appear as news in order to deceive its target audience (Tandoc et al., 2020) . The four above definitions lean towards disinformation as they usually include purposefully inventing news articles, commentaries and even editorials. This was the case for the extensively shared and liked article from the website MayMayGistcom with the headline: 'We are not sure of any COVID-19 in Nigeria: UN'. In the case of this website, the 'news' story was posted to elicit likes and shares for advertisement revenue and profit. In other words, disinformation. Other studies define fake news in line with misinformation. For instance, Apuke and Omar (2020a) conceived fake news as untrue information, including myths, rumours, conspiracy theories, hoaxes, as well as deceptive or erroneous content intentionally or unintentionally disseminated on social media platforms. This study will adopt this definition of fake news as it encapsulates fake news in Nigeria. The inclusion of unintentional sharing of fake news is crucial as many reshare false COVID-19 content on social media with the intention to help while it ultimately misinforms the recipients (Apuke and Omar, 2020a; Wang et al., 2019) . While this study acknowledges that the term, 'fake news' is contested, the study prefers to use 'fake news' as an umbrella word to cover both dis/misinformation. It aptly synthesises dis/misinformation and allows the study to reference both without the monotony of stating the words. Recently, studies have begun to evaluate the effects of fake news. Some have claimed that fake news is socially and democratically problematic as it produces inadequately informed people who then continue to misinform (Bakir and McStay, 2018) . Although many studies have focussed on the effects of fake news on political participation, especially after the 2016 US presidential election (Carlson, 2020) , it has been reported that fake news spreading on mobile social networking applications such as WhatsApp, has been linked to cases of mob killings in countries such as India (Frayer, 2018; Kumar, 2020) . All of these intensify the concern that if not controlled in the long run, fake news may exacerbate the erosion of public trust in news reports and researchers are concerned that it will have a toxic impact on global governance and health communication (Lazer et al., 2018) . It has been argued that social media users shared fake news related to earlier pandemics such as the Ebola virus, with the purpose of offering helpful explanations and to warn other users (Apuke and Omar, 2020b). The ease of disseminating information through digital networks forces people to update family members and friends on critical matters that potentially affect their lives. The more people share these stories, and 'news' content, the more likely that they can share fake news, sometimes without even realising what they have done. This takes an even more salient role when the 'news' concerns a rampant global pandemic that is ravaging the world. Here, a single spread of fake health news could endanger the safety of many people. There is increasing research into the proliferation of fake news in this age of COVID-19. Some of these emerging studies interrogate the relationship between digital networks and fake news related to the COVID-19 pandemic. Some of such studies discovered that the more people make use of social media to receive COVID-19-related information, the more they perceive and behave in a risky manner regarding the virus (Hou et al., 2020; Uwalaka et al., 2021) . Studies suggest that citizens of Vietnam accepted as credible, fake news information about COVID-19 than they believed the official information announced by their government (Huynh, 2020) . In their study, Apuke and Omar (2020a) found that altruism was the most significant factor that predicted fake news sharing of COVID-19. Their result showed that their respondents shared news relating to COVID-19 without expecting anything in return. According to them, this is simply described as the act of disseminating news and information without expecting a reward for such an act (Apuke and Omar, 2020a). Here, their respondents believed that they were offering a public service or in the context of sharing fake news information, they usually believed that they were broadcasting a public service announcement unbeknown to them, that they are misinforming the people that they love. Studies demonstrate that the sharing of fake news on Facebook from shadowy origins in preexisting conspiracist groups is normally magnified by celebrities, sports stars, and media outlets when they engage with the fake news item (Bruns et al., 2020) . Their study offers novel insights into the dynamics of online information dissemination while pointing to opportunities to slow the spread of fake news (Bruns et al., 2020) . Others have studied how fake news stirred the coronavirus and 5G conspiracy theory about the pandemic while some other studies discussed how India and China are regulating COVID-19 fake news (Rodrigues and Xu, 2020) . Similarly, Lampos et al. (2020) found that the flurry of misleading information on COVID-19 has caused some to believe that the virus could be healed with substances such as saltwater, and eating oregano. Other types of such misleading information are that the Chinese government invented the virus or that the virus was created by the US government to destabilise the Chinese government (Lampos et al., 2020) . As these misleading information spread, it created not just hostility among the Chinese people but did also put the health of the people in danger, as some people continued to undermine governments' efforts in implementing preventive measures (Apuke and Omar, 2020a). Some tweets about the death of Abba Kyari, the Chief of Staff to the Nigerian President, General Muhammad Buhari, suggest that he did not die of COVID-19. These tweets are widely liked and retweeted. This demonstrates how social media platforms have been co-opted to spread fake news and fake cures about the pandemic. It has been noted that some 'experts' in Nigeria are trying to offer a false cure for the virus. These 'cures' include things like sitting in the sun (Apuke and Omar, 2020a; Lampos et al., 2020) . From the foregoing, the majority of these studies evaluated factors that lead to the sharing of fake news. However, not much is known about situations and context that leads to an increased likelihood of believing fake news or factors that help users to point out fact-based news sources from fake news sources. A higher number of studies have focussed on media reports (Zhou et al., 2020) , tackling the virus (Lampos et al., 2020) , and the spread of fake news on social media (Apuke and Omar, 2020a). This study empirically appraises the impact of fake news and fake cures on social media on how users viewed and responded to the COVID-19 pandemic in Nigeria. This tries to understand the factors that help social media users in Nigeria to determine the difference between fake news and fake cures headlines from fact-based news headlines and real government guidance regarding the pandemic in Nigeria. This study reports on mixed-methods research consisting of (a) responses from 254 online surveys of social media users in Nigeria, and (b) tweets from Twitter users regarding COVID-19 in Nigeria. Between 1 February and 30 April 2020, the researcher conducted an online survey of 254 adults aged 18 and over who are social media users, using the Survey Monkey platform. The study adopted a snowball sampling approach in which participants were recruited through referrals (Bryman, 2016) . Respondents were given the opportunity to nominate two of their friends in their Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and Nairaland accounts. This facilitated the spread of the survey. A link to the survey was also posted to known Nigerian Facebook groups such as 'Rant Headquarters' and 'EiE.org'. The survey was set such that, a device can only complete the survey once. The survey tested how social media users in Nigeria viewed and responded to the COVID-19 pandemic in Nigeria. The researcher received 256 responses. However, two respondents opted out of the survey after answering the first question. Consequently, this study reports on the remaining 254 responses. The survey consisted of three sections. First, the researcher asked a series of demographic questions including education, gender, age and marital status. Second, the researcher asked about COVID-19 news consumption, including time spent on reading, watching, or listening to COVID-19 news in general and on social media, and the most important source of news and information about COVID-19. Third, the researcher showed each respondent 15 news headlines about COVID-19. The researcher adopted and adapted to suit this study, Allcott and Gentzkow (2017) characterisations of headlines. They gathered a database of fake news articles circulated during the 2016 US election, using lists from independent third parties such as Snopes (snopes.com). Snopes fact-checks news stories and decide whether the news story is true or false. This study adopted Snopes fact-checking. The six fake news headlines used for this study were some of the news stories fact-checked to be false news stories. The six used received significant engagement online. The six headlines together with six others that were fact checked as 'mostly true' or 'true' were used for the survey. Three placebo headlines were added to these 12 headlines for the survey. Thus, for each of the headlines, the researcher asked, 'do you recall seeing this reported or discussed during the pandemic?' and 'would your best guess have been that this statement was true?.' 1 Each respondent's 15 headlines contained nine fake news and fake cure headlines and six true news headlines about the coronavirus. Of the nine fake news headlines, three are invented 'Placebo' fake news headlines, which parallel 'placebo conspiracy theories' (Allcott and Gentzkow, 2017: 11) employed in surveys to control for false recall. This means that the researcher had six headlines that circulated on social media in Nigeria, three headlines that the researcher made up and did not circulate on social media platforms in Nigeria, and six credible news headlines about COVID-19 that circulated on social media. The three forged headlines were used to check for false recall by the respondents. In this study, the dependent variable takes the value of 1, if the survey respondent correctly identified whether a headline is true or false, 0.5 if the respondent is 'not sure' and 0 if the respondent wrongly identified whether a headline is true or false. The researcher also analysed tweets from the hashtags, '#coronavirusNigeria' and '#covid19Nigeria' to ascertain the themes of the tweets about the pandemic in Nigeria. Researchers are attracted to social media platforms because they can harvest thousands of content using freely and publicly available and easily configurable tools (Marwick and Boyd, 2014; . A large amount of data that can be gathered from social media platforms have given rise to the use of data science tools to analyse 'big data' (Marwick and Boyd, 2014) . Researchers are increasingly using techniques such as social networking analysis (Bosch, 2017; Literat and Markus, 2019) , to make sense of 'big data'. While hashtags have been challenged as a sampling approach in big data analytics (Rafail, 2018) , they are still one of the most commonly used methods to capture topic-specific data on social media, particularly on Twitter and Facebook (Jensen et al., 2020) . This paper analysed 10,408 tweets and replies from Twitter users in Nigeria using the hashtags, '#coronavirusNigeria' and '#covid19Nigeria'. These two hashtags were used as a means of extracting tweets and retweets. These tweets and retweets were scraped using Ncapture between 1 February and 30 August 2020, and were subsequently imported first to an excel and then transferred into an NVivo 12 Pro for analysis. This method has been used by other studies to analyse their data (Uwalaka et al., 2020) . The aim here, is to categorise users' tweets and retweets regarding the pandemic. This study sought to explore the effect of fake news and fake cures on digital networks on how Nigerian internet users viewed and responded to the COVID-19 pandemic in Nigeria. The average age of respondents in this study was 36 years old. According to Table 1 , men constitute a higher percentage of the study's respondents with about 56% male and 44% female. The majority (69%) of the respondents are gainfully employed either as Civil Servants or privately employed while 87% of them have either a bachelor's degree or a master's degree. On average, respondents spent 117 min daily to read, watch and listen to news about the coronavirus. Of these 117 min, 66 min were spent reading, watching or listening to news about the virus on social media. Results show that 78% of respondents get their news from social media platforms. This positioned social media as the most used media for news about the pandemic. Only 2% of respondents reported to get their news from newspapers. Furthermore, 45% of respondents reported to have seen COVID-19 cure in the media, and 54% of those are on social media and mobile social networking applications. When asked about their most important source of news about COVID-19, respondents reported that social media (31%) was their most trusted source of news about COVID-19. According to Figure 1 , social media is followed by Cable TV (23%), National TV (19%), radio (13%), websites and applications (12%) and newspapers (2%). This shows that besides social media, this study's respondents trust international cable television more than they trust any local news outlet. The survey asked whether respondents recalled seeing the headline ('do you recall seeing this reported or discussed during the pandemic?') and whether they believed it ('would your best guess have been that this statement was true?'). Findings reveal that 120 respondents recalled seeing the fact-based headlines and 94 out of the 120 reported to have seen and believed the factbased headlines. Surprisingly, more respondents (134) on average reported seeing the fake headlines, and 49 of the 134 respondents recalled seeing and believing the fake headlines. This is significant as about 49 respondents believed that those fake news headlines were credible and true news stories. This result reveals the challenge facing government and health authorities in disseminating helpful tips to combat the virus. A standard multiple regression was used to measure the belief of fact-based news headlines (referred to here as 'true' headlines) on the interaction among those who recalled seeing fake news headlines (fake news headlines), credible headlines (true headlines) and the placebo headlines. Preliminary analyses were conducted to ensure that there were no violations of the assumptions of normality, linearity, multicollinearity and homoscedasticity. The data adequately satisfied these assumptions. After entering all the variables (recalled seeing true news headlines, recalled seeing fake news headlines, recalled seeing placebo news headlines, education, age, gender, recalled seeing and believing fake news headlines, recalled seeing and believing placebo news headlines, and social media as the most important source of news, Cable TV as the most important source of new, TV National as the most important source of news, Radio as the most important source of news, newspapers as the most important source of news, and Apps as the most important source of news) into the SPSS for analysis, eight of the variables (recalled seeing true news headlines, recalled seeing placebo news headlines, recalled seeing and believing fake news headlines, recalled seeing and believing placebo news headlines, social media as the most important source of news, TV national as the most important source of news, newspapers as the most important source of news, and education) made a statistical significant contribution to the model. The total variance explained by the whole model was [37.1%, F(10, 248) = 14.1, p < .001]. This means that these variables explained 37.1% of the variances in seeing and believing credible (true) news headlines. Of these variables, eight (recalled seeing true news, recalled seeing placebo news, recalled seeing and believing fake news, recalled seeing and believing placebo news, social media as the most important source of news, and TV National as the most important source of news, newspaper as the most important source of news, and education) made a unique significant contribution to the model. Of these eight variables, recalled seeing credible (true) news headlines made the largest significant contribution (beta = .595). This is followed by social media as the most important source of news (beta = -.421), then TV (National) as the most important source of news (beta = -.401), recalled seeing and believing placebo news headlines (beta = .245), recalled seeing placebo news headlines (beta = −.223) and recalled seeing and believing fake news headlines (beta = −.145). Others include education (beta = −.049) and newspapers as the main source of news (beta = .023). Table 2 shows that respondents who reportedly recalled seeing credible COVID-19 news headlines are more likely to believe credible news headlines about COVID-19. Also, those who pointed out that the placebo news headlines were fake news headlines, are more likely to believe credible news headlines relating to COVID-19. Conversely, those who reported social media as their most important source of news, TV (National) as their most important source of news, and those who reportedly believed the placebo news headlines as well as those who believed fake news headlines are less likely to believe credible news headlines regarding COVID-19. This is shown in this study's result through the negative beta sign of these variables. Data further revealed that those who reportedly used national TV as their main source of news also believed fake news headlines. However, those who reported using newspapers as their main source of news believed credible news headlines. Age, gender, websites and applications, and radio as main sources of news about the virus were statistically insignificant. This demonstrates that age, gender, websites and applications and radio as the main source of news are not characteristics that affect the believability of credible or fake news headlines. Another interesting finding is that those that reportedly used national TV as the main source of news about the pandemic are statistically likely to believe fake news headlines. As stated earlier, social media (Twitter) contents relating to '#coronavirusNigeria' and '#covid19Nigeria' were analysed to understand how Nigerian Twitter users framed the pandemic in their tweets. The total number of tweets and retweets analysed is 10,408. Of the 10,408 tweets and retweets analysed, 30% (3122) tweets and retweets provided information about the pandemic to Twitter users in Nigeria. According to Table 3 , this information ranged from safety counsel regarding how to safeguard oneself from COVID-19 to statistics regarding the fatalities from COVID-19. Twitter users in Nigeria, using the information provision theme, tweeted and retweeted information relating to the pandemic which helped Nigerians fight the pandemic. For example, a Twitter user in Nigeria tweeted, 'follow the relevant handle to get real info regarding COVID-19'. This Twitter user was exasperated at the level of mis/disinformation about the pandemic that he sent out this tweet to inform and encourage Nigerians to follow the Twitter handles of verified government agencies such as NCDC to receive immaculate information about the pandemic. Another Twitter user encouraged her followers to utilize practical scientific steps and not just faith-based steps alone. She tweeted, 'yes, pray! Pray very hard!! But also, take precautions' The Twitter user was responding to those who were preaching faith-based cures and measures to fight the virus. Using the information provision theme, she acknowledged their right to exercise their faith-based approach but suggested that they also take the practical scientific precautions. One of the users was more succinct and 'brutal' in her information provision tweet. She tweeted, 'I won't be visiting anyone and please do not visit me for now. Stay home, stay safe'. In this tweet, the user provided information about the lockdown and the need for Nigerians to follow the lockdown rules and directives. She explicitly encouraged her friends and fans not to visit her as she will not be visiting anyone. She concluded her tweet by encouraging her fans and friends to stay home and to stay safe. For their part, the National Youth Engagement Network sought information from Twitter users in Nigeria on how best to curb the spread of the coronavirus in Nigeria. They tweeted, 'what innovative ways can we adopt to reduce the communal spread of COVID-19?'. This information solicitation provided a thread where Nigerians on Twitter suggested how best to curb the virus. About 22% (2290) of the tweets pushed a mis/disinformation regarding the pandemic. Many of the tweets were directed at Twitter users in Nigeria in a bid to provide alternative sources of information to that of NCDC and WHO. These tweets denied the existence of the virus, underplayed its seriousness and introduced fake cures. For example, a Nigerian Twitter user tweeted, 'Abba Kyari did not die of Coronavirus'. Another user tweeted, 'this clearly shows that Abba Kyari did not die of COVID-19, it was a cover-up to hide his real ailment'. The user then continued, 'the fact that he could not travel out of the country to seek medical treatment was what led to his death'. These users are opining that the deceased former Chief of Staff to President Buhari, Late Mr Abba Kyari did not die of the coronavirus but from other types of illness that they failed to name. While the second user has a point about the dilapidated state of Nigeria's hospitals, he still engaged in mis/disinformation when he wrongly stated that he did not die of COVID-19. One other user mockingly stated, 'seems people no dey send NCDC and their live score again'. Here, this Twitter user is subtly asserting that the numbers that NCDC publish regarding the virus are made up. By that tweet, the user is insinuating that the severity of the pandemic may have been exaggerated. That is misinformation about the pandemic. Another user argued that the coronavirus in Nigeria is nothing but a scam. The Twitter user tweeted, 'obviously, the whole COVID-19 Nigeria story has turned sour, people recover without medication. No talks about ventilators again despite the billions of Naira dedicated to it' The user went further to opine that 'virtually all recorded cases are deemed asymptomatic. It's all looking like a scam. It may as well not be'. This Twitter user appears to not believe that COVID-19 is real. In his tweets, he alleged that funds may have been misappropriated, and that misappropriation of funds may have been the reason politicians talked about COVID-19. COVID-19 is a global pandemic and is real. This does not insulate politicians as they may have misappropriated some funds. However, portraying the coronavirus as a scam and not real is not only misinformation but also dangerous. Even though the severity of the danger varies, fake news nonetheless adversely impacts society. There are other numerous tweets about fake cures such as the Madagascar herbal remedy, Redemsvir and even Hydro Chloroquine. One of such tweets reads, 'the best treatment so far in this era of COVID-19 pandemic is the Madagascar herbal remedy "artemisa plants," 92 recovery 128 infected cases …'. The Twitter user praised the efficacy of the Madagascar herbal remedy and advertised its effectiveness. About 18% (1873) raised alarm about the hypocrisy of those in leadership. These alarms were raised to point out that politicians were flaunting their own coronavirus lockdown and social distancing directives. For example, a tweet from a Twitter user reads, 'social distancing top notch, Nigeria is a joke abeg. So many people rescheduled weddings, burial ceremonies due to lockdown and social distancing yet our leaders are not leading by examples'. Here, this user believes that the leaders in Nigeria are not walking the walk as much as they talk the talk. This hypocritical posture was what the user was alluding to in that tweet. The tweet was about the lack of social distancing at the funeral of Abba Kyari, the deceased Chief of Staff to President Buhari. Another user did not like the double standards that was playing out in Lagos and tweeted, 'whoever is enforcing the lockdown in Lagos State must be thinking with the sole of their feet'. This tweet was in connection to what the user saw as incompetence mixed with double standards. It was the haphazard and chaotic manner the Lagos State Government went about its lockdowns. In one of the tweets calling out the hypocrisy of leaders in Nigeria, one of the users replied, 'let's stop making excuses for them abeg. They need to step up, this is when the country needs them'. This user appears to be irritated and she urged her followers to call out the leaders and to stop giving them a leeway from their incompetence and hypocrisy. A total of 10% (1041) of tweets were fact checks and tweets debunking either a misleading tweet or outright disinformation while 20% (2082) of the tweets were for other different topics such as lamentations about hunger due to lockdowns, lack of transportation, mishandling of essential services, corruption, lack of palliative measures and so forth. For example, the NCDC tweeted a fact check in response to disinformation regarding the virus and its cases. The NCDC tweeted: the news circulating of COVID-19 confirmed cases in APO, Abuja is false. For two weeks, individuals have edited our graphics used to announce cases and to spread panic. Please disregard and follow our contact details for updates. Every new case confirmed is announced accordingly. In this tweet, the Nigeria Centre for Disease Control (NCDC) attempted a fact check and to debunk conspiracy theories and misinformation campaigns regarding the coronavirus in Nigeria. The fact checking and verification theme was somewhat frequent as there are Twitter users and media organisations in Nigeria that pointed out tweets that have been fact-checked to be inaccurate or misleading. This study sought to probe the effect of fake news and fake cures headlines on social media and how internet users viewed and responded to the COVID-19 pandemic in Nigeria. The study attempted to achieve this by not only looking at the exposure of respondents of this study to fake news headlines relating to the COVID-19 pandemic in Nigeria but also to examine factors that led Nigerians to believe or not to believe fake news and fake cures headlines about COVID-19 pandemic in Nigeria. Using responses from 254 respondents, results overwhelmingly reveal that not only is social media the most used media type for news consumption generally but also the most important source of news about the COVID-19 pandemic for the respondents. The significance of these findings is that while the most credible news headlines that were presented to the respondents were from print newspapers, they (newspapers) are the least trusted source of news about the COVID-19 pandemic by respondents of this study. The reasons for the deepening distrust of mainstream media in Nigeria by Nigerians have been well-documented, and some of the reasons include, ownership structure, the acquiescence of journalists in Nigeria to government propaganda, elitist posture of the Nigerian press people (Hari, 2014; , and studies have alluded to this distrust together with other factors as the reason issues including social movements are digitally networked in Nigeria (Uwalaka, 2020) . This study shows that fake news and fake cures on social media about the COVID-19 pandemic have an adverse effect on the people as it causes people not to trust official guidelines. Findings from this study demonstrate the adverse impact of fake news headlines on social media in Nigeria. For example, results show that about half of respondents in the study saw and believed fake news headlines on social media platforms. This could lead them to reject adhering to the safety procedures put in place by the Nigerian government. Such social media-induced fake news headlines recalcitrant behaviour maybe injurious to such people. A recent study has shown that fake news shared on social media regarding this pandemic has led to death and even serious injury to some people (Uwalaka, 2021; Zhou et al., 2020) . This finding is important as it is crucial to devise means of ameliorating the problem of fake news about COVID-19 and to reduce the gratifying effects of excessive fake news sharing and exposure on social media platforms. Findings further illustrate that respondents were extensively exposed to fake news headlines. Results show that more respondents reportedly saw misleading headlines than they did fact-based news headlines. For example, while 120 respondents reported to have seen fact-based news headlines, 134 reported to have been exposed to fake news headlines. When those that believed fake news and placebo headlines are summed up, data reveal that the same number of respondents who believed fact-based news headlines are less than those that believed misleading news headlines. It is worth pointing out that believing in those fake news headlines have a deleterious consequence during a health pandemic. This finding is similar in some ways to the findings of other studies. It has been suggested that information sharing is a predictor of sharing fake news pertaining to the COVID-19 pandemic, that fake news dissemination is exacerbated by the availability of social media platforms and the phenomenon of virality, and that transmission of fake news, whether intentionally or not, can result in 'real-world harm' (Apuke and Omar, 2020a: 106; Tandoc et al., 2020) . With increased social media use and frequent exposure to fake news, respondents were pummelled with disingenuous information that has the potential to influence them into not just shunning veritable government health guidelines that can be the source of protection during a pandemic such as COVID-19 but can also increase their risk taking and anti-government, anti-science posture during a pandemic. Data illustrate that recalling and believing fake news headlines and placebo headlines decrease the likelihood that such a person will believe credible news headlines while the reverse is the case for those who recalled seeing and believing credible news headlines. It is estimated that the more a respondent uses social media as his or her main source of news, the more the person will be exposed to fake news. After being exposed to fake news for an extended period, the person will then start believing fake news. The more the person believes fake news, the less the person trusts mainstream media. A study asked whether Americans recall and believe manipulated stories. They found that people who minimally expose themselves to media content, people with less education, and younger people are likely to believe online fake news (Allcott and Gentzkow, 2017; Humprecht, 2019; Uwalaka et al., 2021) . The result of this study is similar in some ways to the results of their study. In this study, findings indicate that those who use social media platforms and national TV as the main sources of news and those with less education are statistically more likely to believe fake news about the coronavirus than those who are educated and use newspapers as their main source of news. Unlike Allcott and Gentzkow (2017), age was not statistically significant in this study. This was the case for cable TV, websites, and application as the main sources of news, and gender. This shows that gender and age are not significant factors in how Nigerians, especially this study's respondents, believe fake news. The significant factors are education, TV (National), and social media as the main sources of news about the pandemic. This study also found that some of the common themes that Nigerians tweeted about the virus were the education and information theme, mis/disinformation themes, hypocrisy theme, fact checking or debunking themes and others. This study found that Nigerian internet users used social media platforms (Twitter) to inform and educate other internet users as well as using fact checking to prevent purveyors of fake news and fake COVID-19 cures from misleading others. The fact checking and counter information to fake news online provided a counter measure to fake news and conspiracy theories about the virus (Bruns et al., 2020; . The study uncovered that Twitter users were alarmed at the apparent hypocrisy of the leaders in Nigeria and their double standards during the lockdowns in Nigeria. It is recommended that Nigerian leaders preach what they do and enact policies that they can keep as their inability to adhere to their own lockdown procedure fuelled fake news about COVID-19 in Nigeria. This misinformation reinforces the pre-existing conceptions of the respondent. The study shows that using social media as the main source of news, and extensive exposure to and believing fake news, reduces the likelihood of believing fact-based news. A major practical implication of this study is that ease of use and distrust of traditional media, lead users to expose themselves and believing in fake news and fake cure. Generally, this study suggests that journalists in Nigeria should ensure that they are reporting news in a fact-based and objective manner to regain the trust of the people. Furthermore, the fact that only 2% of respondents reportedly use newspapers as their main source of news is troubling and that trajectory needs to change. Also, this study implores Nigerians to t verify the news headlines and stories that they read online in order to work with the most credible information, especially during a health pandemic such as the coronavirus. While this study contributes to the body of literature studying social media and fake news during a pandemic, the researcher recognises that it has some limitations. It is possible that the results may not be generalizable to fake news believability since the researcher conducted this study with COVID-19 as the focus, drew the sample from social media users in Nigeria, and used an online survey to collect data. Nonetheless, the result may be generalizable to nations with similar characteristics as Nigeria. Also, due to the pandemic, an online survey is the only way one could conduct this research. 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Temple Uwalaka https://orcid.org/0000-0001-7930-4389 Supplemental material for this article is available online.