Vaccine hesitancy on the rise: 4chan and the spread of vaccine misinformation
IMAGE: Cavan Flynn
Doses of COVID-19 vaccines have continued to sit idle as U.S. vaccination rates have dropped from highs of 3.4 million down to 2.8 million. On Monday, the New York Times reported that millions of Americans are not getting a second dose of their vaccine.
While some of these declining numbers have been linked to supply shortages in clinics and pharmacies, a growing number of people are worried about potential vaccine side effects.
Symptoms of both the Pfizer and AstraZeneca vaccine have been consistent with information reported in clinical trials: Headache, fatigue, pain/swelling at the injection site, muscle aches, fever, and joint pain.
As researchers continue to watch vaccine side effects closely, unverifiable and dangerous medical misinformation continues to circulate the internet.
After monitoring two fake news sites, Natural News and the Epoch Times, recent COVID-19 vaccine conspiracy theories and misinformation are maintaining their presence across these channels. This Monday, an article by Ethan Huff, columnist for fake news websites and known anti-vaxxer, posted an article claiming that the Pfizer vaccine is linked to brain damage and early neurodegenerative disorder.
The research cited by Huff was published in the Journal of Microbiology and Infectious Diseases, briefly mentioning a tie between Alzheimer’s and the COVID-19 vaccine. The paper’s author, J. Bart Classen, is another known anti-vaccinationist.
Following the research, the American Council of Science and Health has confirmed that the paper lacks evidence and is “entirely speculative.”
Still, fake news websites have amplified the unverifiable and speculative paper – on Natural News alone, the article has amassed 8,880 views.
While vaccine hesitancy has been ramped up in recent weeks, I decided to unpack the phenomenon further by investigating an anonymous messaging board. Through this, I hoped to uncover the impact this medical misinformation was having on social media.
Using an investigation recipe from First Draft News, I scanned the anonymous messaging board 4chan for conversations relating to the article.
The software 4CAT was useful in allowing me to investigate conversations using the keyword Alzheimer* from April 21-28, 2021. The * symbol allows the software to include variations of the word “Alzheimer.”
My search generated 76 individual discussions. Out of these, 21% of conversations contained misinformation linking the Pfizer vaccine to Alzheimer's.
Some of the users of this discussion board made claims that their friends or family have been displaying symptoms of memory loss while others shared false information that mRNA vaccines are bioweapons.
Although 4chan is not as popular as mainstream social media such as Facebook, Instagram, or Twitter, it has become an epicentre of controversial and dangerous ideologies.
My research, which uncovered a week’s worth of conversations relating to COVID-19 vaccines and Alzheimer’s, is another example of how COVID-19 misinformation spreads in problematic online communities.
Through this research, I can only wonder if these dangerous misinformation hubs are lending to vaccine hesitancy around the world by making unverifiable claims about vaccine side effects.
As always, it is best to fact-check information found on the internet; even those that look like they are from an official journal or website.