Home // ICDS 2021, The Fifteenth International Conference on Digital Society // View article
Authors:
Antonia Egli
Theo Lynn
Pierangelo Rosati
Gary Sinclair
Keywords: Twitter; Social Bots; Social Marketing; Social Media; Public Health Communications; Vaccination; #Antivaxx; #Antivaccination; Anti-vaccination.
Abstract:
Health information is regularly sourced from social media platforms. However, health-related mis- and dis-information, particularly regarding vaccinations, has become increasingly prevalent on social networks since the spread of COVID-19. Automated attempts to manipulate or deceive the public by spreading false information on social media have adverse effects within the online vaccination discourse, for example by potentially converting vaccine hesitant individuals into vaccination deniers. 8,949 English-language tweets featuring the #antivaxx (i.e., anti-vaccination) hashtag generated by 7,721 discrete users in December 2020 were collected, a period when COVID-19 vaccines were first released in the United States. These were examined to determine (a) the prevalence of automated software and social bots in the #antivaxx discourse on Twitter during the focal period, (b) the prevalence of social bot use by active and visible users, and (c) the effectiveness of social network platforms to moderate misinformation. While there is evidence of use of automated software and social bots in the #antivaxx discourse during the period, such software is used by less than 1.5% of users and accounts for between 3.6% and 5.5% of the overall discourse. We also find that active users are more likely to be classified as bots than visible users. Furthermore, Twitter would seem to be effective in identifying and suspending highly active accounts associated with distributing potentially harmful information relating to vaccination.
Pages: 5 to 8
Copyright: Copyright (c) IARIA, 2021
Publication date: July 18, 2021
Published in: conference
ISSN: 2308-3956
ISBN: 978-1-61208-869-3
Location: Nice, France
Dates: from July 18, 2021 to July 22, 2021