Study Warns of Fake Cannabis Posts on Twitter

By Pat Anson, PNN Editor

Russian trolls and bots aren’t the only ones using social media to try to sway public opinion.

A USC analysis of thousands of cannabis-related posts on Twitter found that social media bots regularly make unsubstantiated health claims that suggest that cannabis can help treat pain, cancer, sleep, anxiety, depression, trauma and post-traumatic stress disorder. 

Researchers say their findings, published in the American Journal of Public Health, illustrate how false statements can be used to drown out facts and science on social media.

"We're in a period of time where these misleading messages are pervasive online," said lead author Jon-Patrick Allem, PhD, assistant professor of preventive medicine at USC’s Keck School of Medicine. "We want the public to be aware of the difference between a demonstrated, scientifically-backed piece of health information and claims that are simply made up."

In the United States, cannabis-based medicines are only approved to treat nausea and vomiting caused by chemotherapy, to stimulate appetite in patients experiencing weight loss, and to reduce seizures caused by childhood epilepsy. Many of the tweets made by bots suggest cannabis can help with a variety of other health problems, including foot pain and Crohn's disease.

For the study, researchers identified over 60,000 cannabis-related tweets posted from May 2018 to December 2018. Then they used an academic research tool called “Botometer” to analyze the posts to determine which ones came from real people and which ones were generated by bots that use software to automatically generate posts.

‘Content Polluters’

About 9,000 of the cannabis tweets appeared to come from bots, which were twice as likely to mention health and medical benefits of cannabis than non-bots. Researchers found no references to FDA approved uses for cannabis in the tweets.

The USC study did not look at the individuals or organizations behind the bot-generated posts about cannabis.

"Raising the issue of these false claims by social bots is an important first step in our line of research," Allem said. "The next step will be to examine the self-reported levels of exposure and beliefs in these claims and perceived risks and benefits of cannabis use, intentions to use and actual use."

Another recent study found that bots and other “content polluters” were active on Twitter in fueling the debate over the health benefits of vaccines.

“Content from these sources gives equal attention to pro- and antivaccination arguments. This is consistent with a strategy of promoting discord across a range of controversial topics—a known tactic employed by Russian troll accounts. Such strategies may undermine the public health: normalizing these debates may lead the public to question long-standing scientific consensus regarding vaccine efficacy,” said lead author David Broniatowski, PhD, School of Engineering and Applied Science at The George Washington University.

In 2018, Twitter suspended more than 70 million fake accounts that appeared to be using bots to make posts.

PNN’s Twitter account was recently suspended for 12 days for violating Twitter’s rules against “platform manipulation and spam.” The account was reinstated after we appealed. PNN does not use bots or promote any products or services in its tweets.