  Misinformation/disinformation about COVID-19 has been rampant on social media
around the world. In this study, we investigate COVID-19 misinformation/
disinformation on social media in multiple languages - Farsi (Persian),
Chinese, and English, about multiple countries - Iran, China, and the United
States (US), and on multiple platforms such as Twitter, Facebook, Instagram,
Weibo, and WhatsApp. Misinformation, especially about a global pandemic, is a
global problem yet it is common for studies of COVID-19 misinformation on
social media to focus on a single language, like English, a single country,
like the US, or a single platform, like Twitter. We utilized opportunistic
sampling to compile 200 specific items of viral and yet debunked misinformation
across these languages, countries and platforms emerged between January 1 and
August 31. We then categorized this collection based both on the topics of the
misinformation and the underlying roots of that misinformation. Our
multi-cultural and multilingual team observed that the nature of COVID-19
misinformation on social media varied in substantial ways across different
languages/countries depending on the cultures, beliefs/religions, popularity of
social media, types of platforms, freedom of speech and the power of people
versus governments. We observe that politics is at the root of most of the
collected misinformation across all three languages in this dataset. We further
observe the different impact of government restrictions on platforms and
platform restrictions on content in Iran, China, and the US and their impact on
a key question of our age: how do we control misinformation without silencing
the voices we need to hold governments accountable?
