Vaccine opponents outline online campaigns to sow distrust in coronavirus vaccine

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Wed, 2020-12-23 22:32 — mike kraft

Vaccine opponents outline online campaigns to sow distrust in coronavirus vaccine Leaders of anti-vaccine groups described the coming coronavirus vaccine as a pivotal opportunity to sow distrust in vaccination and laid out planned online campaigns to do so, according to a new report from an organization opposing misinformation online. Elizabeth Dwoskin Washington Post

Leaders of anti-vaccine groups described the coming coronavirus vaccine as a pivotal opportunity to sow distrust in vaccination and laid out planned online campaigns to do so, according to a report from an organization opposing misinformation online.

The report, from the U.K.-based Center for Countering Digital Hate (CCDH), quoted leaked audio from an October conference in which the leaders, many of whom have huge social media followings, discussed strategies to encourage skepticism and fear of vaccines in the months ahead.

The report highlights the ways in which the coronavirus crisis has catalyzed vaccine opponents, as well as the parallels between the tactics used by anti-vaccine groups — such as coordinated messaging — and other purveyors of online misinformation campaigns.

It also illuminates the struggles social media companies face in debunking and policing misinformation about the coronavirus. ...

Some of the tactics discussed during the online conference from the National Vaccine Information Center include coordinating a message, or “master narrative,” that the virus is not dangerous and that organizations that promote vaccines are not trustworthy, according to the report.

That includes pushing misleading story lines — for example, focusing on instances when people experienced side effects from the vaccine and using those examples to argue dangerous side effects will be widespread. Another strategy is to target online health influencers with large followings and African Americans, playing on their historical skepticism of the medical community due to racist practices.

In recent months Facebook removed two major groups opposing vaccination, including the 100,000-plus-member Stop Mandatory Vaccination and several of the movement’s leading figures. The company did not ban the groups for misinformation, but for spammy and abusive behavior, such as using paid troll farms in Macedonia and the Philippines to spread messages.

Those bans, the CCDH says, resulted in 3.2 million fewer people who were members or followers of anti-vaccine pages and groups.

Facebook bans false information about coronavirus vaccines

But that number is small when compared with the way anti-vaccine groups have grown all year. Anti-vaccine conspiracy-theory accounts grew by nearly 50 percent over the year, starting at 15.5 million followers in 2019 and rising to 23.1 million by December 2020, the report said. ...

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