Social media and COVID-19: Characterizing anti-quarantine comments on Twitter

Social media has become a mainstream channel of communication during the COVID-19 pandemic. While some studies have been developed on investigating public opinion on social media data regarding COVID-19 pandemic, there is no study analyzing anti-quarantine comments on social media. This study has collected and analyzed near 80,000 tweets to understand anti-quarantine social comments. Using text mining, we found 11 topics representing different issues such as comparing COVID-19 and flu and health side effects of quarantine. We believe that this study shines a light on public opinion of people who are against quarantine.