The Social Amplification of Haze-Related Risks on the Internet

Examining COVID-19 Tweet Diffusion Using an Integrated Social Amplification of Risk and Issue-Attention Cycle Framework

Drawing upon the social amplification of risk (SARF) and the issue-attention cycle framework, we examined the amplification of COVID-19 risk-related tweets through (a) topics: key interests of discussion; (b) temperament: emotions of tweets; (c) topography (i.e., location); and (d) temporality (i.e., over time). We computationally analyzed 1,641,273 tweets, and conducted manual content analysis on a subset of 6,000 tweets to identify how topics, temperament, and topography of COVID-19 tweets were associated with risk amplification - retweet and favorite count - using negative binomial regression. We found 11 dominant COVID-19 topics-health impact, economic impact, reports of lockdowns, report of new cases, the need to stay home, coping with COVID-19, news about President Trump, government support, fight with COVID-19 by non-government entities, origins, and preventive measure in our corpus of tweets across the issue-attention cycle. The negative binomial regression results showed that at the pre-problem stage, topics on President Trump, speculation of origins, and initiatives to fight COVID-19 by non-government entities were most likely to be amplified, underscoring the inherent politicization of COVID-19 and erosion of trust in governments from the start of the pandemic. We also found that while tweets with negative emotions were consistently amplified throughout the issue-attention cycle, surprisingly tweets with positive emotions were amplified during the height of the pandemic - this counter-intuitive finding indicated signs of premature and misplaced optimism. Finally, our results showed that the locations of COVID-19 tweet amplification corresponded to the shifting COVID-19 hotspots across different continents across the issue-attention cycle. Theoretical and practical implications of risk amplification on social media are discussed.

Online information acquisition affects food risk prevention behaviours: the roles of topic concern, information credibility and risk perception

BACKGROUND

The COVID-19 pandemic has not only brought great challenges to the global health system but also bred numerous rumours about food safety. Food safety issues have once again attracted public attention.

METHODS

The data were drawn from the fifth wave of the first Taiwan Communication Survey database. The respondents were selected via multistage stratified random sampling. The sampling units were townships/districts, villages/neighbourhoods and households. The sample consisted of 2098 respondents. This study first used propensity value matching to analyse the direct impact of online food safety information acquisition on preventive behaviours and examined the heterogeneous impact caused by the difference in the degree of topic attention through value matching. Hayes' PROCESS macro model 6 was applied to confirm the mediating effect and the serial mediating effect.

RESULTS

The research results show that an increase in the frequency of the acquisition of online food safety information significantly increases individuals' food risk prevention behaviour. However, only users with high concern about the issue are affected. The food risk prevention behaviour of users with low concern about this issue is not affected by the acquisition of online food safety information. Further analysis shows that risk perception and information credibility both play mediating roles in the impact of online food safety information acquisition on food risk prevention behaviour. Moreover, the transmission and united effects of information credibility and risk perception play a distal mediating role.

CONCLUSIONS

Food risk prevention behaviours are an important topic for personal health as well as government management. Our study's findings can provide empirical evidence for risk managers and decision-makers to reevaluate the role of the internet in food risk management.

From pandemic to Plandemic: Examining the amplification and attenuation of COVID-19 misinformation on social media

This study examines the proliferation of COVID-19 misinformation through Plandemic-a pseudo-documentary of COVID-19 conspiracy theories-on social media and examines how factors such as (a) themes of misinformation, (b) types of misinformation, (c) sources of misinformation, (d) emotions of misinformation, and (e) fact-checking labels amplify or attenuate online misinformation during the early days of the pandemic. Using CrowdTangle, a Facebook API, we collected a total of 5732 publicly available Facebook pages posts containing Plandemic-related keywords from January 1 to December 19, 2020. A random sample of 600 posts was subsequently coded, and the data were analyzed using negative binomial regression to examine factors associated with amplification and attenuation. Overall, the extended an extended Social Amplification of Risk Framework (SARF) provided a theoretical lens to understand why certain misinformation was amplified, while others were attenuated. As for posts with misinformation, results showed that themes related to private firms, treatment and prevention of virus transmission, diagnosis and health impacts, virus origins, and social impact were more likely to be amplified. While the different types of misinformation (manipulated, fabricated, or satire) and emotions were not associated with amplification, the type of fact-check labels did influence the virality of misinformation. Specifically, posts that were flagged as false by Facebook were more likely to be amplified, while the virality of posts flagged as containing partially false information was attenuated. Theoretical and practical implications were discussed.

Social Media as Risk-Attenuation and Misinformation-Amplification Station: How Social Media Interaction Affects Misperceptions about COVID-19

This study addresses how social media interaction affects misperceptions about COVID-19 via risk perceptions thereof and whether political orientation moderates the relationship. Using original two-wave panel survey data (N = 679), this study reveals that social media interaction increases misperception directly, as well as indirectly by reducing the extent of risk perception. The extent of risk perception is found to be a negative predictor of misperception. The deleterious role of social media interaction on misperception is pronounced across groups of conservatives and liberals, but in different ways. Although the effects of social media interaction on the level of misperception are observed in both conservatives and liberals, this relationship is particularly salient among conservatives. Furthermore, whereas conservatives consistently show low levels of risk perception toward COVID-19 regardless of how much they interact with others on social media, the more liberals interact on social media, the less likely they are to perceive COVID-19-related risks. The findings expand our understanding of the role of interaction behaviors on social media in forming risk perceptions and misperceptions on the politicized COVID-19 pandemic.

Social Media Sentiment about COVID-19 Vaccination Predicts Vaccine Acceptance among Peruvian Social Media Users the Next Day

Drawing upon theories of risk and decision making, we present a theoretical framework for how the emotional attributes of social media content influence risk behaviors. We apply our framework to understanding how COVID-19 vaccination Twitter posts influence acceptance of the vaccine in Peru, the country with the highest relative number of COVID-19 excess deaths. By employing computational methods, topic modeling, and vector autoregressive time series analysis, we show that the prominence of expressed emotions about COVID-19 vaccination in social media content is associated with the daily percentage of Peruvian social media survey respondents who are vaccine-accepting over 231 days. Our findings show that net (positive) sentiment and trust emotions expressed in tweets about COVID-19 are positively associated with vaccine acceptance among survey respondents one day after the post occurs. This study demonstrates that the emotional attributes of social media content, besides veracity or informational attributes, may influence vaccine acceptance for better or worse based on its valence.

Mediating Effects of Attitudes, Risk Perceptions, and Negative Emotions on Coping Behaviors

Based on the perspectives of social risk amplification and the knowledge-attitudes-practice model, this study aimed to test how the level of knowledge about COVID-19 and information sources can predict people's behavioral changes and to examine the effect mechanisms through the mediating roles of attitude, risk perception, and negative emotions in a survey of 498 older Chinese adults. The results showed that (1) older people had a lower level of factual knowledge regarding the variant strains and vaccines; (2) in the information sources-behavior, information sources had a critical influence on elderly individuals' coping behaviors; and (3) in the knowledge-behavior, factual knowledge had a significant effect on elderly individuals' coping behaviors. Specifically, for prevention behaviors, both risk perception and negative emotions played full mediating roles. The findings have significant implications for the development of an effective COVID-19 prevention program to older adults coping with pandemic conditions.

The social amplification of risk framework: New perspectives

Several decades have elapsed since the introduction in 1988 of the social amplification of risk framework (SARF) by researchers from Clark University and Decision Research. SARF was offered as an umbrella under which social, psychological, and cultural theories of risk could be integrated and thereby supplement technical risk analyses. Some critics suggest that SARF cannot be tested thus, the framework is useful, at most, as a post hoc analysis of some kinds of risks. Others counter that predictability is not required for a framework to be useful and that SARF is an effective tool in organizing data related to public perceptions, values, and behaviors. It can also be used to design more effective risk communication and public engagement strategies. SARF also suggests how to conceptually view the dynamics of social media channels, despite the fact that SARF was developed before the explosion of global digital platforms. The papers in this special issue consider developments, refinements, critiques, contributions, extensions of the approach to new risk issues, as well as the findings and hypotheses that have grown out of what is now close to three decades of empirical research. This introductory paper provides background on SARF, presents a literature review since 2003, introduces the contributions to this issue, and highlights several areas for future research.

Impact of Social Media, Extended Parallel Process Model (EPPM) on the Intention to Stay at Home during the COVID-19 Pandemic

Considering how communities perceive the threat and risks of COVID-19, it is essential to examine how emotional regulation stimulated through intrinsic and extrinsic incentive mechanisms via social media can reinforce ‘Stay at home’ intentions. The conceptual framework was developed using the elements of the Extended Parallel Process Model (EPPM). A self-reported questionnaire was used to measure individuals’ intention to stay at home during the pandemic based on the perceived locus of causality as a part of self-determination theory. The empirical research was conducted on a sample of 306 USA respondents. The study results indicate that both components of the EPPM—efficacy and threat—positively affect ‘stay at home’ intentions. Moreover, a positive effect of efficacy on threats was found, as was a moderating effect of threats on the relationship between efficacy and the intention to stay at home. Meanwhile, the influence of social media exposure on threats and behavioral intentions was not significant. People are likely to stay at home as a preventive measure during COVID-19 if there is enough threats and efficacy. However, the abundance of information and opinions in social media can lead to a decreased perceived threat and might disrupt the acceptance of preventive actions.

Internet Use and Quality of Life: The Multiple Mediating Effects of Risk Perception and Internet Addiction

The impact of internet use on quality of life (QoL) has become an increasing focus of academic research. This paper aims to explore the internal influencing mechanisms of internet use (i.e., leisure-oriented internet use (LIU); work-oriented internet use (WIU)) on QoL, with a focus on the multiple mediating effects of risk perception and internet addiction. We constructed a theoretical framework from a psychological perspective and tested the hypotheses using hierarchical regression analysis with a sample of 1535 participants. The results showed that: (1) LIU had a positive effect on QoL, while WIU did not have a significant impact on QoL; (2) both risk perception and internet addiction had a negative influence on QoL; (3) risk perception positively impacted internet addiction; (4) risk perception and internet addiction had multiple mediating effects on the relationship between internet use and QoL.

Exploring how online responses change in response to debunking messages about COVID-19 on WhatsApp

Purpose

The COVID-19 pandemic has spurred a concurrent outbreak of false information online. Debunking false information about a health crisis is critical as misinformation can trigger protests or panic, which necessitates a better understanding of it. This exploratory study examined the effects of debunking messages on a COVID-19-related public chat on WhatsApp in Singapore.

Design/methodology/approach

To understand the effects of debunking messages about COVID-19 on WhatsApp conversations, the following was studied. The relationship between source credibility (i.e. characteristics of a communicator that affect the receiver's acceptance of the message) of different debunking message types and their effects on the length of the conversation, sentiments towards various aspects of a crisis, and the information distortions in a message thread were studied. Deep learning techniques, knowledge graphs (KG), and content analyses were used to perform aspect-based sentiment analysis (ABSA) of the messages and measure information distortion.

Findings

Debunking messages with higher source credibility (e.g. providing evidence from authoritative sources like health authorities) help close a discussion thread earlier. Shifts in sentiments towards some aspects of the crisis highlight the value of ABSA in monitoring the effectiveness of debunking messages. Finally, debunking messages with lower source credibility (e.g. stating that the information is false without any substantiation) are likely to increase information distortion in conversation threads.

Originality/value

The study supports the importance of source credibility in debunking and an ABSA approach in analysing the effect of debunking messages during a health crisis, which have practical value for public agencies during a health crisis. Studying differences in the source credibility of debunking messages on WhatsApp is a novel shift from the existing approaches. Additionally, a novel approach to measuring information distortion using KGs was used to shed insights on how debunking can reduce information distortions.

Risk sharing on Twitter: Social amplification and attenuation of risk in the early stages of the COVID-19 pandemic

Social media trust and sharing behaviors have considerable implications on how risk is being amplified or attenuated at early stages of pandemic outbreaks and may undermine subsequent risk communication efforts. A survey conducted in February 2020 in the United States examined factors affecting information sharing behaviors and social amplification or attenuation of risk on Twitter among U.S. citizens at the early stage of the COVID-19 outbreak. Building on the social amplification of risk framework (SARF), the study suggests the importance of factors such as online discussion, information seeking behaviors, blame and anger, trust in various types of Twitter accounts and misinformation concerns in influencing the spread of risk information during the incipient stages of a crisis when the publics rely primarily on social media for information. An attenuation of risk was found among the US public, as indicated by the overall low sharing behaviors. Findings also imply that (dis)trust and misinformation concerns on social media sources, and inconsistencies in early risk messaging may have contributed to the attenuation of risk and low risk knowledge among the US publics at the early stage of the outbreak, further problematizing subsequent risk communication efforts.

The Threat of COVID-19 and Job Insecurity Impact on Depression and Anxiety: An Empirical Study in the USA

As the coronavirus disease 2019 pandemic causes a general concern regarding the overall mental health of employees worldwide, policymakers across nations are taking precautions for curtailing and scaling down dispersion of the coronavirus. In this study, we conceptualized a framework capturing recurring troublesome elements of mental states such as depression and general anxiety, assessing them by applying standard clinical inventory. The study explores the extent to which danger control and fear control under the Extended Parallel Processing Model (EPPM) threat impact job insecurity, with uncertainty phenomenon causing afflicting effect on the experiential nature of depression heightened by anxiety. With the aim to explore the job insecurity relationship with anxiety and depression, and measure the impact of EPPM threat, an empirical study was conducted in the United States on a sample of 347 white collar employees. Demographic data, EPPM threat, job insecurity, anxiety, and depression data were collected via a standardized questionnaire during the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic. The questionnaire consisting of multi-item scales was distributed online. All the scale items were evaluated on a 5-point Likert scale. SEM software AMOS version 23 was used to perform confirmatory factor analysis with maximum likelihood estimation. In the structural model, relationships between the threat of COVID-19, job insecurity, anxiety, and depression were assessed. The findings of the study suggest that job insecurity has a significant impact on depression and anxiety, whereas the threat of COVID-19 has a significant impact on depression. Mediating effects of job insecurity and EPPM threat impact on anxiety were not established in the study. The study contributes to the apprehension of the repercussions of major environmental disruptions on normal human functioning, and it investigates the effects of self-reported protective behaviors on risk perception. The study also explains the underlying mechanisms of coping behavior as possible antecedents to mental disorders. When subjected to stressful events, heightened psychological arousal causes physical and psychological challenges of affected employees to manifest as behavioral issues.

Haze Pollution Levels, Spatial Spillover Influence, and Impacts of the Digital Economy: Empirical Evidence from China

With the development of digital technologies such as the Internet and digital industries such as e-commerce, the digital economy has become a new form of economic and social development, which has brought forth a new perspective for environmental governance, energy conservation, and emission reduction. Based on data from 30 Chinese provinces from 2011 to 2018, this study applies the space and threshold models to empirically examine the digital economy’s influence on haze pollution and its spatial spillover. Furthermore, it investigates the spatial diffusion effect of regional digital economic development and haze pollution by constructing a spatial weight matrix. Subsequently, an instrumental variable robustness test is performed. Results indicate the following: (1) Haze pollution has spatial spillover effects and high emission aggregation characteristics, with haze pollution in neighbouring provinces significantly aggravating pollution levels in the focal province. (2) China’s digital economy has positively impacted haze pollution, with digital economic development having a significant effect (i.e., most prominent in eastern China) on reducing haze pollution. (3) Changing the energy structure and supporting innovation can restrain haze pollution, and the digital economy can reduce the path mechanism of haze pollution through the mediating effect of an advanced industrial structure. It shows a non-linear characteristic that the influence of haze reduction continues to weaken. Thus, policymakers should include the digital economy as a mechanism for ecologically sustainable development in haze pollution control.

Self‐protection by fact‐checking: How pandemic information seeking and verifying affect preventive behaviours

The COVID‐19 pandemic has witnessed the proliferation of a plethora of (mis)information on various media platforms and inconsistent crisis instructions from different sources. People consume crisis information from multiple channels and sources to better understand the situation and fact‐check COVID‐19 information. This study elucidates how Americans determine their preventive behaviours based on their information seeking and verifying behaviours during the pandemic. Our results were based on a US nationally representative sample (N = 856), and showed that proactive preventive behaviours (e.g., washing hands frequently) were positively affected by information‐seeking through interpersonal channels, news media, and the government, whereas avoidance preventive behaviours (e.g., avoiding social gatherings) were only positively affected by information‐seeking through news media. Crisis information verifying had positive effects on all types of preventive behaviours. Crisis managers are recommended to reach out to the public using appropriate channels and sources and facilitate individual's ability and motivation in verifying pandemic information.

The Impact of Health Risk Communication: A Study on the Dengue, Chikungunya, and Zika Epidemics in Curaçao, Analyzed by the Social Amplification of Risk Framework (SARF)

Epidemics of dengue, chikungunya, and Zika have been threatening the Caribbean. Since risk communication (RC) plays a fundamental role in preventing and controlling diseases understanding how RC works is essential for enabling risk-reducing behavior. This multimethod qualitative study compares news reports with local's and health professional's perspectives, currently lacking in RC research. It was found that RC strategies were obstructed by a lack of governmental structure, organization, and communication. The content analysis showed that the majority of newspaper articles contained negative reporting on the government. Furthermore, this study shows how trust and heuristics attenuate or amplify people's risk perceptions and possibly positively and negatively influence people's risk-reducing behavior. A transcending approach (e.g., structural, cooperative, and multidisciplinary) of the prevention and control of vector-borne diseases and the corresponding RC is recommended.

The Effects of Social Media Use on Preventive Behaviors during Infectious Disease Outbreaks: The Mediating Role of Self-relevant Emotions and Public Risk Perception

While there has been increasing attention to the role of social media during infectious disease outbreaks, relatively little is known about the underlying mechanisms by which social media use affects risk perception and preventive behaviors during such outbreaks. Using data collected during the 2015 Middle East Respiratory Syndrome coronavirus (MERS-CoV) outbreak in South Korea, this study explores the relationships among social media use, risk perception, and preventive behaviors by examining the mediating role of two self-relevant emotions: fear and anger. The findings demonstrate that social media use is positively related to both of these emotions, which are also positively related to the public's risk perception. The findings also indicate that social media use can significantly increase preventive behaviors via the two self-relevant emotions and the public's risk perception.

Restaurant preventive behaviors and the role of media during a pandemic

This study explores how the preventive behaviors of restaurant customers towards COVID-19 are shaped by exposure and attention to media coverage, thereby connecting the issues of community anxieties and business resilience during crises. Ways in which media exposure and attention predict COVID-19 preventive behaviors were examined, as these relate to emotional fear responses and cognitive risk perceptions. An online survey was administered in Taiwan during the COVID-19 pandemic to test the proposed research framework. A total of 366 responses were collected using convenience sampling, and structural equation modeling was deployed to examine the hypothesized relationships. Results indicate that consumer fears and risk perceptions were positively influenced by media coverage of COVID-19. Moreover, fear positively affected individual risk perceptions, and risk perception positively influenced restaurant preventive behaviors. Risk perception was also identified as a mediator between a) media exposure and restaurant preventive behaviors and b) media attention and restaurant preventive behaviors.

Media use pattern as an indicator of mental health in the COVID-19 pandemic: Dataset from India

This article presents data on the media use pattern of respondents with different degrees of mental well-being and mental anxiety in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic. We collected data on demographic variables, patterns of media engagement, and levels of mental well-being and mental anxiety among the Indian adult population in the COVID-19 era. A web-based cross-sectional online survey was conducted to obtain data on two main aspects in the context of COVID-19: mental well-being and mental anxiety and engagement with the media, both television and other social media channels. Using respondent-driven convenient sampling method, 426 Indian adults (age ≥ 18 years) residing in the country responded to the survey. The survey was conducted 3 weeks after the nationwide lockdown was enforced between April 16 and 22, 2020. Besides providing the risk messages about the disease outbreak, the media channels provided sensational coverage of it that might have amplified the risk perception of the public; thus, media use pattern may be a strong indicator of the impact of COVID-19 on the mental health of an individual. Therefore, this dataset could serve as a reference base for in-depth studies on the association between media amplification of a pandemic and the mental health status of the common public in the context of social disaster.

Risk Perceptions and Psychological Effects During the Italian COVID-19 Emergency

The current study provides data about the immediate risk perceptions and psychological effects of the COVID-19 pandemic among Italian participants. A sample of 980 volunteers answered a web-based survey which aimed to investigate the many facets of risk perceptions connected to COVID-19 (health, work, institutional-economy, interpersonal and psychological), and risk-related variables such as perceived knowledge, news seeking, perceived control, perceived efficacy of containment measures, and affective states. Socio-demographic characteristics were also collected. Results showed that although levels of general concern are relatively high among Italians, risk perceptions are highest with regards to the institutional-economy and work, and lowest concerning health. COVID-19 has been also estimated to be the least likely cause of death. Cognitive and affective risk-related variables contributed to explain the several risk perception domains differently. COVID-19 perceived knowledge did not affect any risk perception while the perceived control decreased health risk likelihood. The other risk-related variables amplified risk perceptions: News seeking increased work and institutional-economy risk; perceived efficacy of containment measures increased almost all perceived risks; negative affective states of fear, anger and sadness increased health risk; anxiety increased health, interpersonal and psychological risks, and uncertainty increased work, institutional-economy, interpersonal and psychological risk perceptions. Finally, positive affective states increased health risk perception. Socio-psychological implications are discussed.

From Risk Butterflies to Citizens Engaged in Risk Prevention in the Zika Virus Crisis: Focusing on Personal, Societal and Global Risk Perceptions

This study investigates how posting information about the Zika virus on social media, and receiving information about Zika through the same platforms, are associated with personal, societal and global risk perceptions, and whether different types of risk perceptions are related to information seeking and preventive behavior intentions. A survey of U.S. participants (N = 958) revealed that posting information on social media is positively associated with personal and societal risk perceptions but not with global risk perceptions. Receiving information through social media, however, is positively associated with personal, societal and global risk perceptions. Personal and societal risk perceptions are associated with high information seeking intentions, which in turn leads to preventive behavioral intentions. The results suggest that so-called risk butterflies-those who frequently post information on social media-relate the health crisis to themselves and to their communities, and that these are important motivations for information-seeking and risk preventive behavior.

An Empirical Study on the Influence Path of Environmental Risk Perception on Behavioral Responses In China

In recent years, the outbreak of numerous environmental risk incidents aroused widespread public concern about the amplification mechanism of environmental risk in China. However, few studies have investigated the influence path of environmental risk perception on behavioral responses in Chinese context from a micro perspective. In this article, we develop a multidimensional path model from environmental risk perception to behavioral responses, which aims to investigate how the public’s environmental risk perception influence its different behavioral responses, including environmental radical behavior, environmental concern behavior and environmental protection behavior. A survey data from Chinese General Social Survey 2013 (CGSS2013), was used to test the model, including questions related to information channel (e.g., media use, interpersonal network), cognitive evaluation (e.g., environmental value, public’s evaluation of environmental governance) and environmental knowledge. The results indicate that both information channel factors and cognitive evaluation factors can significantly influence the progress that from environmental risk perception to behavioral responses, of which both media use and environmental value play the amplification role in the transform process, while interpersonal network and public’s evaluation of environmental governance would inhibit public’s risk perception transforming into environmental behavior. Besides, environmental knowledge displays a key bridge role between information channel factors and cognitive evaluation factors. This research findings also demonstrated the evolution paths of three environmental behaviors under the same level of risk perception, namely, risk transformation and diffusion, risk perception enhancement and risk attenuation respectively.

Spreading Ebola Panic: Newspaper and Social Media Coverage of the 2014 Ebola Health Crisis

During times of hot crises, traditional news organizations have historically contributed to public fear and panic by emphasizing risks and uncertainties. The degree to which digital and social media platforms contribute to this panic is essential to consider in the new media landscape. This research examines news coverage of the 2014 Ebola crisis, exploring differences in presentation between newspaper coverage and news shared on the social news platform Reddit. Results suggest that news shared on Reddit amplified panic and uncertainty surrounding Ebola, while traditional newspaper coverage was significantly less likely to produce panic-inducing coverage.

Rethinking Social Amplification of Risk: Social Media and Zika in Three Languages

Using the Zika outbreak as a context of inquiry, this study examines how assigning blame on social media relates to the social amplification of risk framework (SARF). Past research has discussed the relationship between the SARF and traditional mass media, but the role of social media platforms in amplification or attenuation of risk perceptions remains understudied. Moreover, the communication and perceptions of Zika-related risk are not limited to discussions in English. To capture conversations in languages spoken by affected countries, this study combines data in English, Spanish, and Portuguese. To better understand the assignment of blame and perceptions of risk in new media environments, we looked at three different facets of conversations surrounding Zika on Facebook and Twitter: the prominence of blame in each language, how specific groups were discussed throughout the Zika outbreak, and the sentiment expressed about genetically engineered (GE) mosquitoes. We combined machine learning with human coding to analyze public discourse in all three languages. We found differences between languages and platforms in the amount of blame assigned to different groups. We also found more negative sentiments expressed about GE mosquitoes on Facebook than on Twitter. These meaningful differences only emerge from analyses across the three different languages and platforms, pointing to the importance of multilingual approaches for risk communication research. Specific recommendations for outbreak and risk communication practitioners are also discussed.