What drives the propagation of discriminatory fake news? To answer this question, this paper focuses on India at the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic: on March 30, a Muslim convention (the ) in New Delhi became publicly recognized as a COVID hotspot. Using Twitter data, we build a comprehensive novel dataset of georeferenced tweets to identify anti-Muslim fake news. First, we document that fake news about Muslims intentionally spreading the virus spiked after March 30. Then, we investigate the geographical and historical determinants of the spread of fake news in a difference-in-difference setting. We find that the diffusion of anti-Muslim false stories was more pronounced (i) in districts closer to New Delhi, suggesting that fake news spread spatially; and (ii) in districts exposed to historical attacks by Muslim groups, suggesting that the propensity to disseminate fake news has deep-rooted historical origins.

中文翻译：

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假新闻传播的空间和历史驱动因素：来自印度反穆斯林歧视的证据

是什么推动了歧视性假新闻的传播？为了回答这个问题，本文重点关注 COVID-19 大流行爆发时的印度：3 月 30 日，新德里的一次穆斯林大会 (the ) 被公开认定为新冠疫情热点地区。使用 Twitter 数据，我们构建了一个全面的地理参考推文新颖数据集，以识别反穆斯林假新闻。首先，我们记录了有关穆斯林故意传播病毒的假新闻在 3 月 30 日之后激增。然后，我们在差异中调查了假新闻传播的地理和历史决定因素。我们发现，反穆斯林虚假故事的传播在靠近新德里的地区更为明显，这表明假新闻在空间上传播； (ii) 在历史上遭受穆斯林团体袭击的地区，这表明传播假新闻的倾向具有根深蒂固的历史根源。