"Positive Energy": Perceptions and Attitudes Towards COVID-19 Information on Social Media in China

The COVID-19 outbreak has resulted in a worldwide public health crisis. In such times of crisis, access to relevant and accurate information is critical. For many people in China, domestic social media platforms such as WeChat and Weibo have become dominant sources of COVID-19-related information and news. People have to evaluate the trustworthiness of COVID-19-related information and make sharing decisions using platforms that have to contend with government censorship policies, astroturfers, and other government interventions. We interviewed 33 Chinese WeChat users to understand how individuals were seeking COVID-19-related information and how they identified and evaluated specific COVID-19-related misinformation. This work exposes how COVID-19-related content with "positive energy" was prevalent on social media in China. A significant number of interviewees exhibited a willingness to prioritize information valence over veracity when evaluating and sharing content with others. Further, the work revealed how Chinese citizens' understanding of information ecosystems played an important role in their attitudes towards censorship and official media, and also influenced their evaluation of domestic and international information during a global crisis.