About the work

Fake News forced all of us to question the nature of truth, the role of expertise, creating uncertainties at a moment when clarity was most needed. In Fake News Apostols BarabásiLab brings applies its big data and network science practice to unveil the hidden forces that empowered the spread of fake news during the rollout of the COVID vaccines. Relying on data collected by the Fake News Observatory at the Network Science Institute in Boston, the Lab identified each tweet carrying vaccine-related fake news, reconstructing the follower network of over 200,000 Twitter users, identifying 17,000 individuals who actively or unwittingly have helped the spread of fake news related to vaccines.  The work brings to front the exceptional role of 12 fake news apostles, that were responsible for about 70% of the fake-news messages. In 2022 we build 12 paint rollers intricately tied to the fake news narrative, each capturing the unique message of the 12 Fake News Apostoles. These rollers became our paint brush, first engaged in a performance at the Ludwig Museum  “I AM NOT A ROBOT: ON THE BORDERS OF THE SINGULARITY”  exhibit, and at the MEET Museum in Milan.