It is not unknown that social media platforms like Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and other popular platforms have become an integral part of many people’s daily lives. For news, communication, and information, we rely on it. According to Hampton & Wellman (2018),”social media that allow for the articulation of social links and ongoing awareness—both online and offline community members’ viewpoints and everyday activities”(p. 646). Most of the countries around world were under strict lockdown during the COVID-19 pandemic, and it was only inevitable that social media platforms like Facebook would become the primary means of contact, communication and medium of information for many individuals worldwide. Australia was fortunate to be at the bottom of the list of countries affected by COVID-19 because of robust measures such as a rigorous lockdown, a nighttime curfew, and mandatory masks. However, anti-vaxxers and conspiracists use social media platforms Facebook to spread COVID-19 and vaccination misinformation, leading to COVID-19 complacency, vaccine concern, and greater COVID-19 exposure in the community.
The extensive usage of social media provides a platform for global information exchange. Social media platforms users “checking the news while on Facebook or Twitter is often part of larger social media habits, and those habits drive news consumption (Boczkowski et al., 2018, p. 3533). Because platform users consume news from Facebook and other platforms, social media platforms such as Facebook have contributed to the spread of false information. Global networks of influencers share memes, promote videos aimed and flood comment sections, at anti-vaccination and avoiding government health advice on social media platforms like Facebook. This disinformation might profoundly affect the community, such as COVID-19 complacency and vaccination apprehension among platform users. COVID 19 conspiracies have aided in rallying a broad coalition of individuals opposed to mandated vaccinations, in a trend that threatens to erode faith in government and health institutions even further. Moreover, despite Australia’s high immunization rates and world-class health system, we are not immune to the impact of vaccine hesitancy, a global phenomenon.
The significant step in battling the pandemic is the widespread acceptance of the COVID-19 vaccine. Al-Hasan et al. (2021) identified that a vaccine aids individuals’ immune systems acquire disease resistance to any type of virus or disease. A vaccine is not a treatment in and of itself, and vaccination causes herd immunity when it is administered and dispersed to a sufficient enough percentage of a population. In contrast, the anti-vaxxer claims that the coronavirus pandemic is a crated crisis designed to allow a cabal of billionaires, big pharmaceuticals and global bureaucrats and leaders to use a vaccine as a ruse to implant microchips in people. According to Smith & Graham (2017), “anti-vaccination networks on Facebook are large and global in scope, the comment activity sub-networks appear to be ‘small world’. This suggests that social media may have a role in spreading anti-vaccination ideas and making the movement durable on a global scale” (p. 1).
According to Hampton (2015), “with the widespread adoption of social media, these affordances are, for the first time, part of the lives of many people in how they communicate within their personal community “(p.114).Though the lack of regular interaction as a part of the persistent-pervasive community, anyone feels linked to many more individuals, and as a result, anyone may experience greater influence via the network of people we stay in touch with. Facebook and other social media platforms have undoubtedly been a significant driver in forming long-lasting groups, and in the context of COVID-19, it has fostered an excess of anti-vaccination and COVID-19 complacency in Australia. A social platform like Facebook where people like to share if they are experiencing something extremely nice, or possibly an incident that is particularly annoying or strange. In the case of the COVID-19 vaccination, this resulted an images or videos of people who died due to the side effects of vaccination. Because of the persistent-pervasive community that social media has created, everyone who follows that news by following any community group will experience a more substantial impact. Because of the nature of persistent-pervasive communities, the COVID-19 virus, which was already a terrifying occurrence, drove many people to communicate their negative sentiments and experiences, which, as indicated, were shared with many more people than they would have been without a social platform like Facebook.
One of the most fundamental aspects of human beings is that they are products of their environment, and their values, beliefs, attitudes, and worldview are heavily impacted by environmental variables. Religion and culture are two key variables that impact people’s views and decisions. Confirmation bias refers to people’s proclivity to actively seek, interpret, and use information that confirms their previous ideas, even when they know they are incorrect. Aside from availability, Heuristics implies that individuals would appraise a situation by presenting the most recent example that comes to mind. As a result, anti-vaccine advocates would utilize the vaccine’s dangerous components in their arguments. Anti-vaxxers don’t want to take disease-prevention vaccinations and will not allow their children to get vaccinated. They are entirely opposed to the Covid-19 vaccination. They may also present ideas and reasons why vaccinations against the disease should not be used. On the other hand, vaccines prevent the spread of Covid-19, which may cause harm to others or oneself. Anti-vaxxers are causing public health problems by refusing to receive immunizations. Because of anti-vaxxers, more individuals are not getting vaccinated, and the number of cases is growing by the day. As a result, the Covid-19 virus will mutate more. The high prevalence of infectious mutants and the rapidly growing number of cases have resulted in a public health crisis.
Anti-vaxxers using a social platform like Facebook to promote their ideas. According to Burki (2020), “A new report by the Centre for Countering Digital Hate (CCDH) has lambasted social media companies for allowing the anti-vaccine movement to remain on their platforms. The report’s authors noted that social media accounts held by so-called anti-vaxxers have increased their following by at least 7·8 million people since 2019″(p. e504). It is also found by Burki (2020) in the CCDH report that “31 million people follow anti-vaccine groups on Facebook. The CCDH calculated that the anti-vaccine movement could realize US$1 billion in annual revenues for social media firms. As much as $989 million could accrue to Facebook and Instagram alone”(p. e504). Despite strong scientific proof that COVID-19 vaccinations are a safe and effective way to prevent severe instances of a disease that has killed millions throughout the world, there has been a flood of false and misleading remarks seeking to undermine public belief in terms of safety and acceptance. The covid-19 pandemic remains a major public health crisis; with new varieties and mutants quickly spreading, it is becoming increasingly critical that correct vaccine-related information be available and easily accessible to the public. People who have not received the vaccine are not always anti-vaccination. Many of them are afraid to take the plunge, and they have no idea whom to believe or whom to trust. Determining how information reaches them, what sources they believe, and what they continue to share is critical for understanding how to deal with incorrect and misleading statements on social media in the long run.
Covid-19 is a highly lethal and harmful virus. IT is rapidly spreading and killing a large number of people all around the world. We can, however, develop a remedy and eliminate it. However, disinformation regarding any sickness is always more hazardous than the disease itself. Much misinformation about Covid-19 is spreading, such as the prohibition of masked drinking of alcohol. Disinformation is a subset of this: purposely distributing false information in order to deceive others. It might be in false remedies, misleading stories, myths, rumors, and other forms of misinformation regarding the condition. The number of information passed via social networks such as Facebook is deflected or amplified. We are undoubtedly experiencing an infodemic that is more hazardous than the virus pandemic. “The term infodemic has been coined to outline the perils of misinformation phenomena during the management of disease outbreaks”(Cinelli et al., 2020, p. 1). It has even resulted in people’s deaths. There is a lot of disinformation on social platform like Facebook about immunizations, prevention, home treatments, and even the virus’s origin. Some misinformation appears to be political in nature as well. For example, the virus was designed as a bioweapon in a laboratory. As a result, misinformation is often more deadly than the infection itself. The infection will not kill as many individuals as those who try various therapeutic remedies would. Such myths and misconceptions must be debunked. People’s should learn not to believe everything they see on social media platforms like Facebook.
According to Smith & Graham (2017),”Comments also contribute differently to the spread of anti-vaccination discourse and ideas, given that users are able to read each other’s’ comments, interpret and learn from them, and engage in discourse by posting their own comments”(p. 8). During the Covid-19 outbreak, Facebook’s comment areas are inadequately monitored, allowing users to propagate deadly falsehoods using public and private groups. Scare techniques and conspiracy claims are frequently used in comments to foster vaccination reluctance, often violating Facebook’s stated standards. Users take advantage of Facebook’s loose approach to comment moderation by posting links and screenshots of anti-vaccine disinformation in the comment areas of posts in both public and private groups, which is often encouraged by group administrators and moderators. This has happened in various Facebook group networks, including those opposed to immunizations or masks. Unfortunately, because of Facebook’s inadequate supervision of materials on its platform, these evasion strategies are effective, and disinformation thrives on the social media site. With captions as easy as in the comments, users may propagate harmful medical disinformation through the comments area.
To summarize, anti-vaxxers and conspiracists utilize social media platforms like Facebook to propagate COVID-19 and vaccination disinformation, resulting in COVID-19 complacency, vaccine anxiety, and increased COVID-19 exposure in the community. People in an information-saturated society may find it challenging to discriminate between established facts and conjecture. It is also critical that those fighting misinformation and disinformation have a clear grasp of what is propagating on social media, whether it is specific claims or an emotional resonance point. “With the plethora of misinformation, media seems to have an overall negative impact on vaccine intent, and in particular, entertainment-based social media platforms have a more negative influence on vaccine intent than informational based social media platforms. Controlling and clarifying information is very important as knowledge of COVID-19 treatment positively influences vaccine intent”(Al-Hasan et al., 2021, p. 10). Finally, given the dynamic nature of social media and the divided political atmosphere, people from all sectors of society, including government, academia, civil society, individual citizens, and industry, must work together to combat disinformation and misinformation in real-time.
References
Al-Hasan, A., Khuntia, J., & Yim, D. (2021). Does Seeing What Others Do Through Social Media Influence Vaccine Uptake and Help in the Herd Immunity Through Vaccination? A Cross-Sectional Analysis. Frontiers in Public Health, 9. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpubh.2021.715931
Boczkowski, P. J., Mitchelstein, E., & Matassi, M. (2018). “News comes across when I’m in a moment of leisure”: Understanding the practices of incidental news consumption on social media. New Media & Society, 20(10), 3523–3539. https://doi.org/10.1177/1461444817750396
Burki, T. (2020). The online anti-vaccine movement in the age of COVID-19. The Lancet Digital Health, 2(10), e504–e505. https://doi.org/10.1016/S2589-7500(20)30227-2
Cinelli, M., Quattrociocchi, W., Galeazzi, A., Valensise, C. M., Brugnoli, E., Schmidt, A. L., Zola, P., Zollo, F., & Scala, A. (2020). The COVID-19 Social Media Infodemic. Scientific Reports, 10(1). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-020-73510-5
Hampton, K. N. (2015). Persistent and Pervasive Community. American Behavioral Scientist, 60(1), 101–124. https://doi.org/10.1177/0002764215601714
Hampton, K. N., & Wellman, B. (2018). Lost and Saved . . . Again: The Moral Panic about the Loss of Community Takes Hold of Social Media. Contemporary Sociology: A Journal of Reviews, 47(6), 643–651. https://doi.org/10.1177/0094306118805415
Smith, N., & Graham, T. (2017). Mapping the anti-vaccination movement on Facebook. Information, Communication & Society, 22(9), 1–18. https://doi.org/10.1080/1369118x.2017.1418406
Hi Radib. This was an excellent read and kudos for shining the light on the dark and rather disheartening reality of social media and its ability to be exploited. The Australian Communications and Media Authority (ACMA) submitted a report in March of this year that detailed some key recommendations for the government to adopt to help combat the widespread distribution of misinformation. I am hoping that the government heeds this information provided by the ACMA and takes a proactive stance on dealing with this issue. While a lot of the burden falls on platforms and governments to crack down on the spread of misinformation, is there anything you would recommend from your research into this topic to help victims of misinformation?
There is no silver bullet, no fail-safe, always-effective weapon that will continuously operate against the spread of misleading information. We require a multisectoral, multilevel plan. We want these platforms to take this seriously and devote their resources and assets to minimizing the problem to the greatest extent feasible. We must also provide our healthcare practitioners with the resources to handle these challenges when they arise. More importantly, parents must be educated from the start, even before these concerns arise. One of the most successful counterpoints to misinformation and disinformation is to double down on evidence-based, scientific communication tactics and then personalize the message to be most effective in each group. We must collaborate with community groups and organizations schools, parent-teacher associations, and religious institutions to ensure that community norms incorporate immunizations while combating misinformation.
Hi Radib,
This was an excellent paper and I really enjoyed reading it. I can’t imagine parts of this research were too pleasant, as the consequences of misinformation can be unfortunate. Throughout your research did you come across anything that discussed the non-medical impact on people’s lives who were pulled into these conspiracy theories, more like people losing jobs or livelihoods because they were victims of misinformation?
-Rebecca
Yes, Rebecca, while doing my research, I came across news that an anti-vaxxer was fired before starting his work because he obtained a false medical exemption. For your convenience, I’ve included a news link below.
Woolworths vaccine mandate: Job offer withdrawn after interview lie exposed | news.com.au — Australia’s leading news site
Hi Radib,
I enjoyed reading your paper! I am interested to know what you think the potential ramifications or effects will be on those who identify with the anti-vax social media communities with their content being constantly moderated and removed because of Facebook’s policies? How will it affect their communities? Are there other significant platforms that they could use?
As the pandemic spread throughout the world, Facebook banned damaging covid-related propaganda. However, false statements continue to multiply. The platform content-recommendation algorithms, which are still primarily geared to elevate material that engages the most people, regardless of what it is, even conspiracy theories, are at the heart of the problem. Anti-vaxxers might also utilize YouTube and Twitter as virtual channels.