Background: The use of social media platforms to seek information continues to increase. Social media platforms can be used to disseminate important information to people worldwide instantaneously. However, their viral nature also makes it easy to share misinformation, disinformation, unverified information, and fake news. The unprecedented reliance on social media platforms to seek information during the COVID-19 pandemic was accompanied by increased incidents of misinformation and disinformation. Consequently, there was an increase in the number of scientific publications related to the role of social media in disseminating health misinformation and disinformation at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic. Health misinformation and disinformation, especially in periods of global public health disasters, can lead to the erosion of trust in policy makers at best and fatal consequences at worst. Objective: This paper reports a bibliometric analysis aimed at investigating the evolution of research publications related to the role of social media as a driver of health misinformation and disinformation since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic. Additionally, this study aimed to identify the top trending keywords, niche topics, authors, and publishers for publishing papers related to the current research, as well as the global collaboration between authors on topics related to the role of social media in health misinformation and disinformation since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic. Methods: The Scopus database was accessed on June 8, 2023, using a combination of Medical Subject Heading and author-defined terms to create the following search phrases that targeted the title, abstract, and keyword fields: (“Health*” OR “Medical”) AND (“Misinformation” OR “Disinformation” OR “Fake News”) AND (“Social media” OR “Twitter” OR “Facebook” OR “YouTube” OR “WhatsApp” OR “Instagram” OR “TikTok”) AND (“Pandemic*” OR “Corona*” OR “Covid*”). A total of 943 research papers published between 2020 and June 2023 were analyzed using Microsoft Excel (Microsoft Corporation), VOSviewer (Centre for Science and Technology Studies, Leiden University), and the Biblioshiny package in Bibliometrix (K-Synth Srl) for RStudio (Posit, PBC). Results: The highest number of publications was from 2022 (387/943, 41%). Most publications (725/943, 76.9%) were articles. JMIR published the most research papers (54/943, 5.7%). Authors from the United States collaborated the most, with 311 coauthored research papers. The keywords “Covid-19,” “social media,” and “misinformation” were the top 3 trending keywords, whereas “learning systems,” “learning models,” and “learning algorithms” were revealed as the niche topics on the role of social media in health misinformation and disinformation during the COVID-19 outbreak. Conclusions: Collaborations between authors can increase their productivity and citation counts. Niche topics such as “learning systems,” “learning models,” and “learning algorithms” could be exploited by researchers in future studies to analyze the influence of social media on health misinformation and disinformation during periods of global public health emergencies.

In this systematic literature review, a study of the factors involved in the spreading of fake news, have been provided. In this review, the root causes of the spreading of fake news are identified to reduce the encouraging of such false information. To combat the spreading of fake news on social media, the reasons behind the spreading of fake news must first be identified. Therefore, this literature review takes an early initiative to identify the possible reasons behind the spreading of fake news. The purpose of this literature review is to identify why individuals tend to share false information and to possibly help in detecting fake news before it spreads.

Crime is a reality that affects everyone, especially in South Africa that has one of the world's highest crime rates. A number of strategies have been undertaken by the South African society at large in the fight against crime. One of these was the establishment of Community Policing Forums (CPFs) which encourages communities to work with the South African Police Service (SAPS) to combat and ultimately reduce crime. A number of these CPFs have embraced Facebook to execute their mandate. Little research has been done on how Facebook is used in South Africa to fight crime. The aim of this study is to understand how CPFs use Facebook in their fight against crime by determining the type of information that is shared among themselves as well as how this information is shared. This was done by employing a thematic content analysis approach of a months' worth of Facebook posts of a particular CPF community in the East Rand of Gauteng, South Africa. This resulted in the analysis of 247 posts. This study found that the CPF community shares two types of information: firstly, information relating to the building of a cohesive community, which in terms of this research is defined as a community with a common vision to achieving more effective crime control. Secondly, information related to the creating of awareness of crime in the area. It was further shown that community members share information between different communities such as private security firms, other CPFs, and other communities dedicated to the fight against crime. They therefore used the power of Facebook to expand the boundaries of their immediate community. It was further found that even though the main operating platform for the CPF is Facebook, community members were encouraged to join the WhatsApp group of their local Neighbourhood Watch (NHW), which highlighted that CPFs operate on multiple platforms. The significance of this research is presented in the Crime Prevention Lifecycle which explains that within a cohesive community, crime can be reduced through the actions of community members. Further research is recommended to extend the understanding of CPFs' and other less structured communities' use of social media focusing on the integration of multiple platforms.