A program of the Cyber Policy Center, a joint initiative of the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies and Stanford Law School.
The global COVID-19 crisis has significantly shifted the landscape for mis- and disinformation as the pandemic has become the primary concern of almost every nation on the planet. This has perhaps never happened before; few topics have commanded and sustained attention at a global level simultaneously, or provided such a wealth of opportunities for governments, economically motivated actors, and domestic activists alike to spread malign narratives in service to their interests. In response, the Stanford Internet Observatory is launching the Virality Project, a global study aimed at understanding the disinformation dynamics specific to the COVID-19 crisis.
In January 2020, the Stanford Internet Observatory expanded this project in collaboration with colleagues at New York University, the University of Washington, the National Council on Citizenship, and Graphika. The work of that collaboration is at http://viralityproject.org.