From COVID-19 Treatment to Miracle Cure : The Role of Influencers and Public Figures in Amplifying the Hydroxychloroquine and Ivermectin Conspiracy Theories during the Pandemic

Introduction
Medical misinformation and conspiracies have thrived during the current infodemic as a result of the volume of information people have been exposed to during the disease outbreak. Given that SARS-CoV-2 (COVID-19) is a novel coronavirus discovered in 2019, much remains unknown about the disease. Moreover, a considerable amount of what was originally thought to be known has turned out to be inaccurate, incomplete, or based on an obsolete knowledge of the virus. It is in this context of uncertainty and confusion that conspiracies flourish. Michael Golebiewski and danah boyd’s work on ‘data voids’ highlights the ways that actors can work quickly to produce conspiratorial content to fill a void. The data void absent of high-quality data surrounding COVID-19 provides a fertile information environment for conspiracies to prosper (Chou et al.).
Conspiracism is the belief that society and social institutions are secretly controlled by a powerful group of corrupt elites (Douglas et al.). Michael Barkun’s typology of conspiracy reveals three components: 1) the belief that nothing happens by accident or coincidence; 2) nothing is as it seems: the "appearance of innocence" is to be suspected; 3) the belief that everything is connected through a hidden pattern. At the heart of conspiracy theories is narrative storytelling, in particular plots involving influential elites secretly colluding to control society (Fenster). Conspiracies following this narrative playbook have flourished during the pandemic. Pharmaceutical corporations profiting from national vaccine rollouts, and the emergency powers given to governments around the world to curb the spread of coronavirus, have led some to cast these powerful commercial and State organisations as nefarious actors – 'big evil' drug companies and the ‘Deep State’ – in conspiratorial narratives. Several drugs believed to be potential treatments for COVID-19 have become entangled with conspiracy.
At the start of the pandemic scientists experimented with repurposing existing drugs as potential treatments for COVID-19 because safe and effective vaccines were not yet available. A series of antimicrobials with potential activity against SARS-CoV-2 were tested in clinical trials, including lopinavir/ritonavir, favipiravir and remdesivir (Smith et al.). Only hydroxychloroquine and ivermectin transformed from potential COVID treatments into conspiracy objects. This article traces how the hydroxychloroquine and ivermectin conspiracy theories were amplified in the news media and online. It highlights how debunking processes contribute to amplification effects due to audience segmentation in the current media ecology. We conceive of these amplification and debunking processes as key components of a ‘Conspiracy Course’ (Baker and Maddox), identifying the interrelations and tensions between amplification and debunking practices as a conspiracy develops, particularly through mainstream news, social media and alternative media spaces. We do this in order to understand how medical claims about potential treatments for COVID-19 succumb to conspiracism and how we can intervene in their development and dissemination.
In this article we present a commentary on how public discourse and actors surrounding two potential treatments for COVID-19: the anti-malarial drug hydroxychloroquine and the anti-parasitic drug ivermectin became embroiled in conspiracy. We examine public discourse and events surrounding these treatments over a 24-month period from January 2020, when the virus gained global attention, to January 2022, the time this article was submitted. Our analysis is contextually informed by an extended digital ethnography into medical misinformation, which has included social media monitoring and observational digital field work of social media sites, news media, and digital media such as blogs, podcasts, and newsletters.
Our analysis focusses on the role that public figures and influencer