ElectionRumors2022: A Dataset of Election Rumors on Twitter During the 2022 U.S. Midterms

Abstract

Understanding the spread of online rumors is a pressing societal challenge and an active area of research across domains. In the context of the 2022 U.S. midterm elections, one influential social media platform for sharing information — including rumors that may be false, misleading, or unsubstantiated — was Twitter (now renamed X). To increase understanding of the dynamics of online rumors about elections, we present and analyze a dataset of 1.81 million Twitter posts corresponding to 135 distinct rumors which spread online during the midterm election season (September 5 to December 1, 2022). We describe how this data was collected, compiled, and supplemented, and provide a series of exploratory analyses along with comparisons to a previously published dataset on 2020 election rumors. We also conduct a mixed-methods analysis of five distinct rumors about the election in Arizona, a particularly prominent focus of 2022 election rumoring. Finally, we provide a set of potential future directions for how this dataset could be used to facilitate future research into online rumors, misinformation, and disinformation.