FibVID: Comprehensive fake news diffusion dataset during the COVID-19 period

As the SARS-CoV-2 (COVID-19) pandemic has run rampant worldwide, the dissemination of misinformation has sown confusion on a global scale. Thus, understanding the propagation of fake news and implementing countermeasures has become exceedingly important to the well-being of society. To assist this cause, we produce a valuable dataset called FibVID (Fake news information-broadcasting dataset of COVID-19), which addresses COVID-19 and non-COVID news from three key angles. First, we provide truth and falsehood (T/F) indicators of news items, as labeled and validated by several fact-checking platforms (e.g., Snopes and Politifact). Second, we collect spurious-claim-related tweets and retweets from Twitter, one of the world’s largest social networks. Third, we provide basic user information, including the terms and characteristics of “heavy fake news” user to present a better understanding of T/F claims in consideration of COVID-19. FibVID provides several significant contributions. It helps to uncover propagation patterns of news items and themes related to identifying their authenticity. It further helps catalog and identify the traits of users who engage in fake news diffusion. We also provide suggestions for future applications of FibVID with a few exploratory analyses to examine the effectiveness of the approaches used.