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 The biggest problem with this is that there shouldn't be a debate at
all, said lead study author David Broniatowski, a professor of
engineering management and systems engineering at George Washington
University in Washington, D.C.
"There is widespread consensus in favor of vaccines, yet that is not
the impression you would get from looking at Twitter," Broniatowski
said by email.
"Exposure to the 'vaccine debate' erodes public trust in healthcare
providers and leads people to delay vaccination, exposing us to the
risk of epidemics," Broniatowski added. "Just 'amplifying' debate
can therefore have real consequences."
In the study, researchers compared how much average users tweeted
about vaccines compared to the volume of posts by bots and trolls
from July 2014 to September 2017. They estimated the likelihood that
users were bots and compared the proportions of polarizing and
anti-vaccine content across user types.
Ordinary twitter users posted much less often about vaccines, and
tended to have much less inflammatory #vaccinateUS messages to share
than automated bots and Russian trolls, researchers report in the
American Journal of Public Health.
The bots and trolls were much busier, and shared more extreme views.
In the antivaccine camp, there were #vaccinateUS tweets like this
one: "Dont get #vaccines. Illuminati are behind it."
And, like this: "At first our government creates diseases then it
creates #vaccines. what's next?!"
Or this one designed to target socioeconomic tensions: "Apparently
only the elite get 'clean' #vaccines. And what do we, normal ppl
get?!"
Pro-vaccine tweets were also extreme, like this example: "#vaccines
are a parents choice. Choice of a color of a little coffin."
Or this one: "Do you still treat your kids with leaves? No? And why
don't you #vaccinate them? It's medicine!"
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Russian trolls appeared to promote discord rather than favor one
side of the vaccine debate, while bots that spread malware appeared
to be more solidly anti-vaccine, the study found.
Researchers have real reason to be concerned about any social media
activity that intensifies debate about vaccines because any
resulting decline in vaccination rates may mean children's' lives
are at stake, said Dr. Matthew Davis of the Ann & Robert H. Lurie
Children's Hospital of Chicago.
"As a primary care physician, I know that social media, on many
platforms, affects how many parents think about vaccinating their
children," Davis, who wasn't involved in the study, said by email.
"The deliberate attempts of bots and trolls to misinform, mislead,
and otherwise discourage parents from vaccinating their children are
undermining one of the strongest, most positive medical and public
health tools that parents and healthcare providers can use to
protect children," Davis added.
A growing number of U.S. children are missing out on recommended
vaccinations in states that permit parents to skip inoculations due
to their personal beliefs even when there's no medical reason their
child can't be vaccinated, previous research has found.
Waning vaccine use has contributed to measles outbreaks in several
U.S. communities in recent years, including a 2015 outbreak in
California that began at Disneyland.
Messages on twitter, other social media platforms and the internet
may have played a role, said Dr. Peter Hotez of Baylor College of
Medicine in Houston.
"The antivaccine lobby has made effective use of the internet and
social media in amplifying their messages," Hotez, who wasn't
involved in the study, said by email. "Twitter is certainly one of
their vehicles but there are others."
SOURCE: https://bit.ly/2NgRvhE American Journal of Public Health,
online August 23, 2018.
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