Study names 12 most dangerous anti-vaxxers in America

An estimated 65 per cent of the viral anti-vaccine content on Facebook and Twitter in the US is attributable to 12 anti-vaxxers who play a leading role in spreading digital misinformation, a new study has claimed.

The study, ‘The Disinformation Dozen,’ was conducted by the non-profit Center for Countering Digital Hate and Anti-Vax Watch, an alliance of individuals trying to educate Americans about the dangers of the anti-vaccine industry.

The 12 anti-vaxxers who were identified in the study were Joseph Mercola, Robert F Kennedy Jr, Ty and Charlene Bollinger, SherriTenpenny, Rizza Islam, Rashid Buttar, Erin Elizabeth, Sayer Ji, Kelly Brogan, Christiane Northrup, Ben Tapper and Kevin Jenkins.

The 40-page report said they were selected because they have “large numbers of followers, produce high volumes of anti-vaccine content or have seen rapid growth of their social media accounts in the last two months.”

The anti-vaccine content analysed for the study was shared or posted on Facebook and Twitter a total of 812,000 times between 1 February and 16 March this year.

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The report also noted that the posts shared by the 12 anti-vaxxers indulged in conspiracy theories claiming that vaccines cause autism, infertility, can threaten pregnant women, that the pandemic is not real, and masks have no effect on transmission.

But despite repeatedly violating Facebook, Instagram and Twitter’s terms of service agreements, the study said that “nine of the disinformation dozen remain on all three platforms, while just three have been comprehensively removed from just one platform.”

The analysis of anti-vaccine content posted to Facebook over 689,000 times in the last two months shows that up to 73 per cent of it originates with members of the disinformation dozen of leading online anti-vaxxers.

An analysis of over 120,000 anti-vaccine tweets shows that up to 17 per cent feature the 12 anti-vaxxers.

The report demanded that platforms should establish a “clear threshold for enforcement action, such as two strikes, after which restrictions are applied to accounts short of de-platforming them.”

It said that in addition to de-platforming the personal accounts of the 12 identified anti-vaxxers, key organisations that are linked to them or help spread their messages should also be removed.

According to Daily Mail, a Facebook spokesperson said they have already taken action against some of the persons in the list highlighted by the report while a Twitter spokesperson said that they are unable to take action against every tweet that contains incomplete or disputed information about Covid-19.

“Since introducing our Covid-19 guidance last year, we have removed more than 22,400 tweets and challenged 11.7 million accounts worldwide,” the Twitter spokesperson added.

Meanwhile, the report also said that social media users should be presented with “warning screens when attempting to follow links to sites known to host vaccine misinformation, and users exposed to posts containing misinformation should be shown effective corrections.”

Update, 7 August 2024: five months after the publication of this report, Meta issued a statement that disputed the claims contained and the methodology used by its authors.