The use of contact-tracing apps to curb the spreading of the COVID-19 pandemic has stimulated social media debates on consumers' privacy concerns about the use and storage of sensitive data and on conspiracy theories positing that these apps are part of plans against individuals' freedom. By analyzing the type of language of tweets, we found which words, linguistic style, and emotions conveyed by tweets are more likely to be associated with consumers' privacy concerns and conspiracy theories and how they affect virality. To do so, we analyze a set of 5615 tweets related to the Italian tracing app “Immuni”. Results suggest that consumers' privacy concerns and conspiracy theories belong to different domains and exert different effects on the virality of tweets. Furthermore, the characteristics of the text (namely, complexity, certainty and emotions) cue different Twitter users' behaviors. This study helps researchers and managers to infer the psychological mechanisms that lead people to spread tweets about privacy concerns and conspiracy theories as well as how these texts impact the user who receives it.

中文翻译：

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言语很重要：隐私问题和阴谋论如何在推特上传播

使用接触者追踪应用程序来遏制 COVID-19 大流行的蔓延，引发了社交媒体关于消费者对敏感数据的使用和存储的隐私担忧以及阴谋论的辩论，这些应用程序是针对个人的计划的一部分自由。通过分析推文的语言类型，我们发现推文传达的哪些词、语言风格和情感更有可能与消费者的隐私担忧和阴谋论以及它们如何影响病毒传播相关联。为此，我们分析了与意大利追踪应用程序“Immuni”相关的 5615 条推文。结果表明，消费者的隐私担忧和阴谋论属于不同的领域，对推文的病毒式传播产生不同的影响。此外，文本的特征（即复杂性、确定性和情绪）提示不同的 Twitter 用户的行为。这项研究帮助研究人员和管理人员推断导致人们传播有关隐私问题和阴谋论的推文的心理机制，以及这些文本如何影响接收它的用户。