The Strategy Behind Anti-Vaxxers' Reply Behavior on Social Media.
Year: 2021
Type: preprint
Abstract: Although the online campaigns of anti-vaccine advocates, or anti-vaxxers, severely threaten efforts for herd immunity, their propaganda strategies remain poorly understood, as does their reply behavior, which constitutes the most direct form of outreach on social media. Therefore, we empirically analyzed the strategy of anti-vaxxers' reply behavior on Twitter in terms of interaction frequency, content, and targets. Among the results, anti-vaxxers more frequently conducted reply behavior to other clusters, especially to neutral accounts, and the content of their replies was significantly toxic and emotional. Furthermore, the most-targeted users were so-called decent accounts with large numbers of followers, including accounts related to health care or representing scientists, policymakers, or media figures or outlets. We discussed and evaluated the effectiveness of these reply strategies, as well as the possible countermeasures to them. Those findings should prove useful for developing guidelines for pro-vaxxers and fact-checkers in online communities.
Source: arXiv (Cornell University)
Language: English
Subfield: Sociology and Political Science
Field: Social Sciences
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: green
OpenAlex ID: W3165881768