For decades, the anti-vaccine movement has created and spread rumors that vaccines cause serious health problems. The deployment of the COVID vaccine has provided a new opportunity to disseminate false information.
Since the beginning of the pandemic, people have not only been confused by the virus, but also the impact of other public health measures, such as lockdowns, on physical and social well-being. With the start of the COVID vaccine deployment, there was growing concern about the small but serious risk of blood clots associated with the AstraZeneca vaccine.
In addition to this, there was a noticeable degree of panic around unfounded rumors of adverse events (very rare medical problems after vaccination) prevailing on social media.
But contrary to the general belief that social media produces these rumors, our new research suggests that social media has enough clues to help spread these rumors.
What is the “vaccine harm” shared on social media?
We have studied the flow of information on social media, the types of information shared, and by whom the community’s attitude towards COVID vaccination.
The latest research has tracked new concerns about suspicious adverse events worldwide. I used Google Trends and Crowdtangle. This is a research platform for researching public data on Facebook. We focused on the most commonly searched and discussed events and tracked where they came from.
We delved into the five most frequently searched adverse events: coagulation, syncope, Bell’s palsy, premature death, and infertility.
coagulation
Coagulation was associated with a rare case of thrombosis with the AstraZeneca vaccine and thrombocytopenia syndrome (TTS). This led to the suspension of the vaccine. Authorities have imposed age limits on recipients in many countries in the wake of this rumor.
News coverage of coagulation was generally rational and consistent with the threat posed by the condition. This issue was newsworthy in itself and did not require sensational reporting. As social media spread these reports around the world, the first reports of coagulation that emerged from Austria spread to Facebook pages in Ghana, the Philippines and Mexico within eight hours.
Syncope, Bell’s palsy, premature death
There was no scientific basis for the other four rumors investigated. However, three of them are specifically quoted from “traditional” (television and newspaper) news coverage of a particular case.
For example, a Tennessee nurse fainted on television shortly after receiving the Pfizer vaccine. Traditional media reports included the nurse’s own disclosure of the history of fainting and warned against ascribed it to the vaccine.
Similarly, old baseball legend Hank Aaron died of natural causes two weeks after receiving the COVID vaccine on his camera. He wanted to encourage other black Americans to get vaccinated.
These two incidents were widely reported in traditional media and soon flowed into social media posts due to vaccines.
Rumors of Bell’s palsy came from Bangladesh news reports, which were subsequently picked up by British outlets and were due to a rare condition in the Pfizer vaccine.
infertility
Rumors of the COVID vaccine that causes infertility were the only ones we couldn’t trace to the original “traditional media” source. Instead, two internet stories misrepresented the work, and the words of scientists were widely shared on social media. Traditional media has only taken up the story to report false information that has occurred.
Let’s take this as an example of an online vaccine skeptic’s “theory making”. This is when a group of people on the Internet use collective resources to analyze information and create a plausible description of an event.
In the case of infertility, the voluntary community has abused two scientific sources to build what they represent as compelling evidence of cover-ups. Since then, this theory has persisted in internet rumors that the COVID vaccine caused the problem of infertility.
In the other four cases above, it was discovered that traditional media still plays an important role in determining people’s perceptions of suspicious adverse events.
What did the mainstream news outlets do?
Traditional media has been important to people sharing social media posts because it treated mainstream media reports as a marker of credibility.
Vaccine-skeptical communities have used international media sources to create “evidence” of adverse events. They then redistributed this “evidence” within an international network.
Infamous outlets chased “clickbait” and accelerated the spread of false information. For example, when 86-year-old Aaron died, one site led under the headline “Hank Aaron’s Death: The Legend of MLB is Shockingly Passed A few Weeks After Vaccination with COVID-19.” This headline became even more widespread on social media, much faster than most reports explaining that Aaron’s death was not the result of his preventive contact.
Inaccurate and sensational headlines in mainstream media continued to facilitate important searches and sharing. Rumors spread around the world regardless of national borders.
Most of the rumors we investigated attracted attention for media coverage. However, journalists have also played an important role in curbing or uncovering illegal claims.
The confusion of previous media models clearly poses a challenge to the accuracy of information shared on the Internet. The requirements for news sources to generate clicks can outweigh the requirements for providing accurate and reliable information.
So what is the solution?
There is no easy answer to solve the wrong flow of information online.
However, using trust markers for both authors and stories on social media is one possible solution. A system that allows publicly recognized topic experts to “agree” and “disagree” with news articles to generate a “reliability score” allows readers to determine the perceived reliability of a particular article or information. Useful for.
In the meantime, if it is necessary to clarify the story of suspected adverse events, it is recommended that scientists and medical professionals promote their own perspective, if possible. Doing so can change the trajectory and breadth of the story.
The statements of scientists and medical professionals cannot prevent stories from being shared within the online community of vaccine denials. These people are invested in sharing such information, regardless of their credibility. But experts can limit the harmful spread of rumors once the press begins reporting their rants.
(Conversation / PTI)
