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from the thought-you-were-reading-El-Reg-for-a-moment? dept.
Jennifer Ouellette over at Ars Technica is reporting on new research on "how distrust in health expertise spreads through social networks."
The article, published on 13 May, in the journal Nature compares network relationships within both pro and anti vaccination groups on Facebook. From the Ars piece:
Last year, the United States reported the greatest number of measles cases since 1992. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, there were 1,282 individual cases of measles in 31 states in 2019, and the majority were among people who were not vaccinated against measles. It was yet another example of how the proliferation of anti-vaccine messaging has put public health at risk, and the COVID-19 pandemic is only intensifying the spread of misinformation and conspiracy theories.
But there may be hope: researchers have developed a "map" of how distrust in health expertise spreads through social networks, according to a new paper published in the journal Nature. Such a map could help public health advocates better target their messaging efforts.
[...] [Lead author]Johnson and his colleagues analyzed Facebook communities actively posting about the topic of vaccines during the 2019 measles outbreak—more than 100 million users in all—from around the world, mapping out the interconnected networks of information across cities, countries, continents, and languages. There were three main camps: communities that were pro-vaccine, communities that were anti-vaccine, and communities that were neutral or undecided regarding the topic (groups focused on parenting, for instance).
The researchers then tracked how the various communities interacted with each other to create a detailed map of the networks. "It's not geographic, it's to do with closeness in a social network sense—in terms of information, influence," Johnson told Ars. "It's not whether I'm here and someone's in Australia. It's the fact that someone in Australia agrees with my slightly twisted narrative on COVID-19 and I'm getting their feed. Although my neighbor doesn't understand me, the person in Australia does.
[...] The results were surprisingly counter-intuitive. While there were fewer individual people who were anti-vaccine on Facebook, there were almost three times as many anti-vax communities clustered around Facebook groups and pages. So any pro-vaccine groups seeking to counter the anti-vaccine misinformation often targeted larger communities and missed the small- to medium-sized clusters growing rapidly just under their radar, according to Johnson.
With the COVID-19 pandemic, the spread of misinformation has gotten even worse. "We didn't stop the day we submitted this paper," said Johnson. "We've been monitoring every day, every minute, the conversations and what you see in these Facebook pages, in these clusters, these communities. It's gone into hyper drive since COVID-19." He and his colleagues developed a predictive model for the spread, which showed anti-vaccine sentiment dominating public discourse on the topic within a decade. Furthermore, "that was a worst-case scenario if nothing was done as of December 2019, when we submitted the paper," said Johnson. "Now it's amplified. If we did that same study now, I think it would be a lot faster than ten years because of the COVID-19 situation. It's the perfect storm."
[...] A new study [Abstract. Preprint PDF available for download] published in the journal BMJ Global Health bolsters Johnson et al.'s findings. Scientists at the University of Ottawa in Canada searched YouTube for the most widely viewed videos in English relating to COVID-19. They narrowed it down to 69 videos with more than 247 million views between them and then assessed the quality of the videos and the reliability of the information presented in each using a system developed specifically for public health emergencies.
The majority of the videos (72.5 percent) presented only factual information. The bad news is that 27.5 percent, or one in four, contained misleading or inaccurate information, such as believing pharmaceutical companies were sitting on a cure and refusing to sell it; incorrect public health recommendations; racist content; and outright conspiracy theories. Those videos—which mostly came from entertainment news, network, and Internet news sources—accounted for about a quarter of the total views (roughly 62 million views). The videos that scored the highest in terms of accuracy, quality, and usefulness for the public, by contrast, didn't rack up nearly as many views.
DOI: Nature, 2020. 10.1038/s41586-020-2281-1
DOI: BMJ Global Health, 2020. 10.1136/bmjgh-2020-002604 [Full paper here, gratis]
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Friday May 15 2020, @11:30PM (10 children)
How many measles cases are people who immigrated (legally or illegally) into the US recently? Did their not having been vaccinated against measles in their origin countries account for why they hadn't been vaccinated? Perhaps that had more to do with it than any "anti-vaccine messaging", hmm?
Did they ask how having Bill Gates as a cheerleader for vaccines might actually increase anti-vaccination sentiment? Personally I've dealt with Mr. Gates' products in my profession since the DOS days, and I wouldn't trust anything that miserable pockfaced whoreson says about anything, ever.
Oh, and read that quoted section again. It says that the majority of measles cases happened in people not vaccinated. So just how many occurred in people who had been vaccinated? Isn't the vaccine working? What's the percentage of people who had been vaccinated who got it anyway? Does the CDC downplay of the cases where the vaccine was ineffective lend credence to all that "anti-vaccine messaging" they're decrying?
(Score: 3, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Friday May 15 2020, @11:55PM (6 children)
According to the CDC [cdc.gov], it's *very* effective:
And you're welcome.
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday May 16 2020, @12:15AM (5 children)
97% effective at preventing measles, 22% effective at causing autism. No thanks, I'm keeping my children vaccine-free and healthy.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday May 16 2020, @12:35AM (2 children)
Where's that '-1, found the moron' mod when you need it?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday May 16 2020, @05:55AM (1 child)
Go easy on him, he's probably from American Samoa, and his children are all dead.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday May 17 2020, @02:12AM
Really? A Pulp Fiction reference [uberquotes.net]? Well done, other AC!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday May 16 2020, @06:07AM (1 child)
Genuinely interested in your figures. Sources please?
The MMR is 3 vaccines in one, but the schedule is for dozens before age 10. Is there something special about MMR that has been studied but not widely published?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday May 16 2020, @03:52PM
"The MMR is 3 vaccines in one, but the schedule is for dozens before age 10."
[citation needed]
(Score: 5, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday May 16 2020, @12:15AM (1 child)
After two doses of MMR, 97% of people are protected against measles, 88% against mumps, and at least 97% against rubella. Measles resulted in 2.6 million deaths per year before immunization became common. This has decreased to 122,000 deaths per year as of 2012, mostly in low-income countries. Through vaccination, as of 2018, rates of measles in North and South America are very low. Vaccination is not effective against stupidity.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday May 16 2020, @05:21PM
Something tells me the "Unasked Questions" will be copy-pasta'd into the next thread on vaccines/viruses. Let me guess... "UNASKED QUESTIONS LIBERALS DONT WANT YOU TO KNOW".
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday May 16 2020, @09:08PM
> How many measles cases are people who immigrated (legally or illegally) into the US recently?
The legal ones had to have these shots, from: https://www.cdc.gov/immigrantrefugeehealth/laws-regs/vaccination-immigration/revised-vaccination-immigration-faq.html#whatvaccines [cdc.gov]
As soon as there is a CV vaccine, I strongly suspect it will be added to the list...