Navigating the fog of war during the Russia’s invasion of Ukraine: An exploratory network analysis of tweets about an alleged chemical attack in Mariupol

As part of our ongoing research on misinformation and disinformation of various types, we conducted an exploratory analysis of tweets discussing an unverified report that Russian forces engaged in a chemical attack in Mariupol, Ukraine. This claim was made on April 11 by Ukraine’s Azov regiment. At the time when this claim was first reported, Mariupol was surrounded by Russian troops, making it difficult, if not nearly impossible, for journalists to gain access to the city and to interview local sources. We were interested in examining how this claim was discussed on social media because if it was true, it had the potential to galvanize the world’s sentiments in support of Ukraine and against Russia. Using Twitter’s Academic Track API, we retroactively collected 246,189 public tweets posted between April 6 and 13, 2022 to analyze how Twitter users were discussing this claim. We collected tweets related to this case a few days before and after April 11 to capture speculation before the accusation, and the reaction to it. We used the search query “chemical (weapons OR weapon) (Mariupol OR Ukraine)” to collect data. (For data completeness, we kept 12,193 tweets referenced by one of the tweets in the search results.)

本研究隶属于我们针对各类错误信息与蓄意虚假讯息开展的持续性研究项目，我们针对推特上讨论一则未经证实的报道展开探索性分析——该报道称俄罗斯军队在乌克兰马里乌波尔发动化学袭击。该指控由乌克兰亚速营（Azov Regiment）于2022年4月11日提出。该指控首次被报道时，马里乌波尔已被俄军包围，记者即便并非完全无法进入该市，也极难抵达并采访当地消息源。我们之所以关注该指控在社交媒体上的讨论情况，是因为若该指控属实，将有可能激发全球舆论对乌克兰的支持与对俄罗斯的反对情绪。我们依托推特学术研究轨道API（Twitter Academic Track API），回溯采集了2022年4月6日至13日期间发布的246189条公开推文，以分析推特用户对该指控的讨论情况。我们采集了4月11日前后数日内与该事件相关的推文，以捕捉指控发布前的舆论揣测及后续舆论反应。我们采用搜索查询"chemical (weapons OR weapon) (Mariupol OR Ukraine)"采集数据。为保障数据完整性，我们保留了搜索结果中被至少一条推文引用的12193条推文。