The Inoculation -- Vaccine Misinformation and Society

The WHO has declared that the COVID-19 pandemic is no longer a public health emergency of international concern. But does it mean that spreaders of pandemic disinformation have dispersed and gone dormant? We discuss the persistence of pandemic disinformation with Tommaso Canetta, who works at Pagella Politica/Facta in Italy. He also edits regular fact-checking briefs for the European Digital Media Observatory: https://edmo.eu/fact-checking-briefs/ These briefs compare how much disinformation on the pandemic, climate, and other topics is tackled by fact-checkers in Europe. You can find all our past episodes with transcripts here: https://www.theinoculation.com/episodes/ . Please subscribe to this show on Apple Podcasts, Audible, Google Podcasts, Spotify, or another platform of your choice. Follow us on Facebook as @theinoculation, on Twitter as @TInoculation, and on Instagram as @the_inoculation.

ChatGPT, a user-friendly AI tool that generates text in response to keywords, is expected to cause major disruptions in the media, education, and various creative jobs. In late March, the Italian privacy regulator effectively banned it. As societies grapple with the tool’s impact and controversies, we are looking back at our interview with AI researcher Micah Musser, who works at the Georgetown's Center for Security and Emerging Technology, and reconsidering his team’s findings regarding AI’s potential to turbocharge disinformation. You can find all our past episodes with transcripts here: https://www.theinoculation.com/episodes/ . Please subscribe to this show on Apple Podcasts, Audible, Google Podcasts, Spotify, or another platform of your choice. Follow us on Facebook as @theinoculation, on Twitter as @TInoculation, and on Instagram as @the_inoculation.

In this episode, we talked to Christiern Santos Rasmussen about the possible future of Russian disinformation tactics. Together with his team he researched how disinformation actors tweak their message for the countries they operate in. For example, in Poland, claiming that Russia only wants peace would be a hard sell, so these actors double down on anti-EU propaganda. You can read more about Seymour Hersh’s allegations on the Nordstream sabotage, mentioned in the episode, in Coda Story’s article: https://www.codastory.com/newsletters/seymour-hersh-nord-stream/ Please subscribe to this show on Apple Podcasts, Audible, Google Podcasts, Spotify, or another platform of your choice. Follow us on Facebook as @theinoculation, on Twitter as @TInoculation, and on Instagram as @the_inoculation.

Being able to reach key facilities, like schools and shops, within 15 minutes, would make city life really comfortable, right? Not if you ask conspiracy theories, mobilizing around the world to blend opposition to the idea of 15-minute cities with anti-vaccination and far-right sentiment. They think that 15-minute cities are all about population control. In this episode we explore how the protests, online abuse against proponents of the 15-minute city idea, and an explosion of climate deniers’ hashtags illustrate how conspiracies keep reincarnating. Older episode with Eszter Szenes: https://www.theinoculation.com/are-antivaxxers-more-likely-to-be-pro-putin/ The Great Reset conspiracy: https://www.isdglobal.org/digital_dispatches/the-great-reset-conspiracy-in-australia/ Take-up of the 15 minute city conspiracy in the UK: https://edition.cnn.com/2023/02/26/world/15-minute-cities-conspiracy-theory-climate-intl/index.html Far-right presence: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/feb/24/far-right-trying-to-infiltrate-low-traffic-protests-campaigners-warn

How do algorithms facilitate the rise of political fringes in Europe? And what makes it worthy for political opportunists to be radical? We invited Prof. Miguel Poiares Maduro, who has an academic background in law, governance and politics, to reflect on the various threats to democracy from social media, and to zoom in on his home country, Portugal. Prof. Poiares Maduro also chairs the executive board of the European Digital Media Observatory, so we asked him about responses to anti-Ukrainian disinformation across the political spectrum. Here are the links to the past episodes mentioned: Antivaxxers and pro-Kremlin ideas: https://www.theinoculation.com/are-antivaxxers-more-likely-to-be-pro-putin/ How the Portuguese far right opposed vaccine mandates and got an electoral boost: https://www.theinoculation.com/portugal-is-europes-vaccine-hero-losing-its-special-balance-allowing-right-wing-parties-to-flourish/ Ales Herasimenko predicts that antivaxx movements will overflow into political ruptures: https://www.theinoculation.com/the-inoculation-episode-4/ Please subscribe to this show on Apple Podcasts, Audible, Google Podcasts, Spotify, or another platform of your choice. Follow us on Facebook as @theinoculation, on Twitter as @TInoculation, and on Instagram as @the_inoculation.

What are the latest news on disinformation and vaccine hesitancy? We discuss our top picks — and discuss the pros and cons of AI-assisted news review. Here's a link to our earlier episode on ChatGPT: Links to the news discussed: https://www.wired.co.uk/article/twitter-sudden-death-vaccine-conspiracies https://edmo.eu/2022/12/06/died-suddenly-yet-another-conspiracy-video-about-covid-19-vaccines-reigniting-disinformation-with-the-same-old-hoaxes/ https://medium.com/dfrlab/how-china-funds-foreign-influence-campaigns-72d547ad0771 https://www.nytimes.com/2023/01/10/world/europe/finland-misinformation-classes.html https://www.nature.com/articles/s41591-022-02185-4 https://www.lrt.lt/en/news-in-english/19/1878060/insects-in-food-give-rise-to-lithuania-s-latest-wave-of-conspiracy-theories Please subscribe to this show on Apple Podcasts, Audible, Google Podcasts, Spotify, or another platform of your choice. Follow us on Facebook as @theinoculation, on Twitter as @TInoculation, and on Instagram as @the_inoculation.

This season The Inoculation is focusing on politics and activism. We will explore how anti-vaccine views have left a mark on different political and activist movements in Europe and beyond. Daiva will be focusing on these issues as a Policy Leader fellow at the European University Institute in Florence. Please subscribe to this show on Apple Podcasts,Audible,Google Podcasts, Spotify, or another platform of your choice. Follow us on Facebook as @theinoculation, on Twitter as @TInoculation, and on Instagram as @the_inoculation.

Elon Musk is making sweeping changes at Twitter. Does it mean that anti-vaccine disinformation and violent extremism will flourish? This is our last episode this year. Tune in when we’re back in January! Sources: https://techcrunch.com/2022/12/14/elon-jet-the-twitter-account-tracking-elon-musks-flights-was-permanently-suspended/https://www.vice.com/en/article/y3pjkw/elon-musk-is-now-promoting-qanonhttps://www.bbc.com/news/technology-63796832https://www.abc.net.au/news/science/2022-12-08/covid-misinformation-spiking-on-twitter-elon-musk/101742276https://www.euronews.com/green/2022/11/17/how-climate-disinformation-is-spreading-after-elon-musks-twitter-takeoverhttps://www.theguardian.com/technology/2022/dec/02/climate-change-denialism-flooding-twitter-scientistshttps://gnet-research.org/2022/11/18/islamic-state-supporters-on-twitter-how-is-new-twitter-handling-an-old-problem/https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-022-03552-4.pdfhttps://twitter.com/maksymeristavi/status/1602793279015337988?t=RKEQB2Jxj4FY2YnE6lL-sA&s=19https://apnews.com/article/elon-musk-twitter-inc-technology-social-media-misinformation-fd4227b138878a5b0e5129a4bdd5bac0 Please subscribe to our newsletter, and this show on Apple Podcasts,Audible,Google Podcasts, Spotify, or another platform of your choice. Follow us on Facebook as @theinoculation, on Twitter as @TInoculation, and on Instagram as @the_inoculation. Individually, we are on Mastodon too: Daiva at @daivarep@dju.social and Eva at @evavonschaper@mastodon.social

With Twitter in turmoil, we are inviting you to revisit our conversation with WF Thomas, a disinformation researcher. Eva talked to him while working on a story on audio disinformation, which was part of her Transatlantic Media Fellowship by the Heinrich Boell Foundation Washington, DC. You can read the BBC reporting on Russia’s Twitter network here and the New Yorker’s article on regulation here. Please subscribe to our newsletter, and this show on Apple Podcasts,Audible,Google Podcasts, Spotify, or another platform of your choice. Follow us on Facebook as @theinoculation, on Twitter as @TInoculation, and on Instagram as @the_inoculation. Individually, we are on Mastodon too: Daiva at @daivarep@dju.social and Eva at @evavonschaper@mastodon.social

As Dr. Oz loses his bid for a seat in the US Senate and the American Board of Internal Medicine moves to strip a falsehood-spreading doctor’s qualifications, we look at the phenomenon of medical doctors spreading COVID-19 disinformation on both sides of the Atlantic. In this episode, we reference our earlier work: - On homeopathy: https://www.theinoculation.com/homeopathy-a-pseudoscientific-gateway-to-anti-vaccine-views-and-covid-19-denialism/ - On a Swedish team that got an interview with Andrew Wakefield: https://www.theinoculation.com/how-anti-vaccination-movements-pull-parents-in/ Please subscribe to our newsletter, and this show on Apple Podcasts, Audible,Google Podcasts, Spotify or another platform of your choice. Follow us on Facebook as @theinoculation, on Twitter as @TInoculation, and on Instagram as @the_inoculation. Individually, we are on Mastodon too: Daiva at @daivarep@dju.social and Eva at @evavonschaper@mastodon.social Links: https://counterhate.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/05/210324-The-Disinformation-Dozen.pdf https://www.nature.com/articles/s41562-017-0256-5 https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/dr-oz-shouldnt-be-a-senator-or-a-doctor/ https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2022/jan/27/anti-vaxxers-making-at-least-25m-a-year-from-publishing-on-substack

According to Pew Research, six-in-ten American adults accept at least one of New Age beliefs: psychics, spiritual energy, reincarmation and/or astrology. And overall, seven-in-ten women hold at least one New Age belief, compared to just over half of men. Research also shows that spiritual people are more likely to believe in COVID-19 conspiracies. That’s why in this episode we are looking at conspirituality — the merger of conspiracy theories and spiritual beliefs. We discuss the origins of the term, the different generations of conspirituality, and their influence today. We also talk to Dr. Eszter Szenes about the transatlantic links among conspiritual movements. To make sure you never miss our stories, please subscribe to our newsletter, and this show on Apple Podcasts,Audible,Google Podcasts, Spotify or another platform of your choice. Follow us on Facebook as @theinoculation, on Twitter as @TInoculation, and on Instagram as @the_inoculation Sources: https://www.mcgill.ca/oss/article/granola-and-guns-rise-conspirituality https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2021/oct/17/eva-wiseman-conspirituality-the-dark-side-of-wellness-how-it-all-got-so-toxic ​​https://spir.aoir.org/ojs/index.php/spir/article/view/12093/10485

Homeopathy, the principle that ‘like cures like’ even in trace amounts, came to be at a time when opium, blood-letting and alcohol were all common treatments for illnesses. Study after study, it has been proven not to work, and testing of homeopathic products appears to often fail to follow established ethics. But many European countries allow selling sugar pills with ‘memory’ water alongside clinically tested drugs. The idea of memory water also appeals to anti-vaccine entrepreneurs. And, as we discuss in this episode, homeopathic and anti-vaccine communities significantly overlap. Sources: https://en.rebaltica.lv/2021/02/who-spreads-the-vaccine-lies-in-the-baltics/ https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/jan/10/ginger-root-and-meteorite-dust-the-steiner-covid-cures-offered-in-germany https://www.br.de/nachrichten/kultur/was-esoterik-mit-impfgegnern-zu-tun-hat,Sq9wIpr https://www.medmedia.at/relatus-med/homoeopathen-rufen-zu-corona-impfung-auf/ https://www.nhmrc.gov.au/about-us/resources/homeopathy

The prospect of a cold winter makes energy a hot topic in Europe. Russia, aiming to chip away at Western support for Ukraine, has an interest in stoking people’s fears. And where does Russia find enthusiastic supporters? You guessed it — among public health skeptics. This is the first episode of our 4th season, in which we will focus on Germany and the ways various health, energy and climate conspiracies link up there. For this episode we talked to GMFUS’s Bret Schafer and Kristine Berzina to learn about how Russia goes about shaping public opinion abroad. Here are some of the information sources used for this episode: Polling Nordstream 2: https://de.statista.com/statistik/daten/studie/1282647/umfrage/festhalten-am-projekt-nord-stream2/ Germans’ opinion now: https://www.n-tv.de/politik/Mehrheit-ist-gegen-Offnung-von-Nord-Stream-2-article23536541.html Share of Russian gas in Europe: https://www.statista.com/statistics/1201743/russian-gas-dependence-in-europe-by-country/ Dependency on Russia: https://www.statista.com/chart/26768/dependence-on-russian-gas-by-european-country/ Russian gas reserves: https://www.statista.com/topics/6207/russian-natural-gas-industry/#dossierKeyfigures Imports: https://ihsmarkit.com/research-analysis/russian-gas-imports-in-the-eu-threat-or-a-chance.html and: https://www.nytimes.com/2022/09/07/business/russia-gas-europe.html How Russia cut gas supplies: https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-60131520 Our earlier episodes: Episode 25 - Are Antivaxxers More Likely to be Pro-Putin? Episode 21 - The Falsehood Firehose: How Russian Disinformation Actors Spread Propaganda Episode 18 - How Anti-Vaccination Movements Pull Parents In Episode 17 - Fight Against Vaccine, Climate Disinformation Linked: Expert Episode 11 - Social Media, Russia, Disinformation -- GMFUS' Bret Shafer Episode 10 - 'Superspreaders of Malign' -- Disinformation Expert Miriam Matthews Talks About Russian Information Manipulation

We previously reported that robots can spew out new kinds of disinformation. But can they also help detect and flag it? To find out, Eva talked to researcher Giovanni Da San Martino, who is researching natural language processing at the University of Padova. Here are some links to relevant studies: https://aclanthology.org/2020.emnlp-tutorials.2.pdf https://www.osti.gov/servlets/purl/1783004 https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.2104235118 https://spj.sciencemag.org/journals/hds/2022/9858292/ And we invite you to listen to our story on a Spanish-language news service that targets misinformation. This is the last episode of this season. We’ll be back in September. To make sure you never miss our stories, please subscribe to our newsletter, and this show on Apple Podcasts,Audible,Google Podcasts, Spotify or another platform of your choice. Follow us on Facebook as @theinoculation, on Twitter as @TInoculation, and on Instagram as @the_inoculation

Our story from Malta has made it to the Solutions Story Tracker — a rigorously curated database run by the Solutions Journalism Network. So today we invite you to revisit this story and hear an update on what the Mediterranean island country did to vaccinate its population against COVID-19. If you’re interested in vaccine mandates, you will probably enjoy our earlier episode on the topic. Please subscribe to our newsletter, and this show on Apple Podcasts,Audible, Google Podcasts, Spotify or another platform of your choice. Follow us on Facebook as @theinoculation, on Twitter as @TInoculation, and on Instagram as @the_inoculation

Researching the benefits of situations where people come together to solve puzzles or make decisions, Cecilie Steenbuch Traberg realised that there is a dark side of collective intelligence. This led her to research fake news. When her team showed simulated social media posts, accurate or not, to a sample of Americans, it emerged that liberals more than conservatives judge information as reliable, even when it isn’t, when it comes from a source they trust. So The Inoculation team contacted Cecilie Steenbuch Traberg to find out more. You can read her and Sander van der Linden’s paper here. The tweet mentioned by Eva is here. Please subscribe to our newsletter, and this show on Apple Podcasts, Audible, Google Podcasts, Spotify or another platform of your choice. Follow us on Facebook as @theinoculation, on Twitter as @TInoculation, and on Instagram as @the_inoculation

In this episode, we fact-check VAIDS, a made-up syndrome anti-vaxxers are using to scare people away from getting vaccinated. Here is some background info: https://health-desk.org/articles/is-there-any-evidence-of-vaccine-acquired-immunodeficiency-in-relation-to-covid-19-vaccines-and-booster-shots Here's the list of the "Disinfo Dozen": https://counterhate.com/research/the-disinformation-dozen/ Please subscribe to our newsletter, and this show onApple Podcasts, Audible,Google Podcasts, Spotify, or another platform of your choice. Follow us on Facebook as @theinoculation, on Twitter as @TInoculation, and on Instagram as @the_inoculation

Elon Musk’s bid to buy Twitter has prompted the WHO to make a statement on misinformation. Misinformation costs lives, Mike Ryan, executive director of the health emergencies program at the WHO, said about the offer from Musk, a self-described free-speech absolutist. The Recode podcast has pointed out that in the past Musk was known for his trolling behavior. Twitter has certain festures that make spreading disinformation easy. So this week The Inoculation explore the implications of the bid for the disinformation scene with the help of WF Thomas, a disinformation researcher. Eva talked to him while working on a story on audio disinformation, which was part of her Transatlantic Media Fellowship by the Heinrich Boell Foundation Washington, DC. You can read the BBC reporting on Russia’s Twitter network here and the New Yorker’s article on regulation here. Please subscribe to our newsletter, and this show on Apple Podcasts, Audible,Google Podcasts, Spotify, or another platform of your choice. Follow us on Facebook as @theinoculation, on Twitter as @TInoculation, and on Instagram as @the_inoculation

Disinformation warfare is not new to the Baltic States - and they have been boosting their preparedness since 2014 and were lauded as successful. Then why did countering COVID-19 disinformation prove challenging? In December, Daiva and Eva spoke to Nika Aleksejeva, who is a data journalism trainer and lead researcher for the Baltics at the Atlantic Council's Digital Forensic Research Lab. “COVID-19 disinformation is a very good lesson for us to be less naive about our capabilities,” she says. You can read more about Latvia's disinformation actors here. You can also read our Re:Baltica article about the superspreaders of vaccine disinformation in the Baltics here. Daiva recently wrote a story about how the war in Ukraine effects people in Lithuania - you can read it here. Please subscribe to our newsletter, and this show on Apple Podcasts, Audible, Google Podcasts, Spotify or another platform of your choice. Transcripts are at www.theinoculation.com ​​After the investigation is complete, you will be able to find the code we used for the analysis of the European Parliament's data on our GitHub repository. The production of this investigation is supported by a grant from the IJ4EU fund. The International Press Institute (IPI), the European Journalism Centre (EJC) and any other partners in the IJ4EU fund are not responsible for the content published and any use made out of it. Follow us on Facebook as @theinoculation, on Twitter as @TInoculation, and on Instagram as @the_inoculation.

As part of our data investigation, we took a look at politicians' tweets in the Netherlands. We found that far-right politicians are more likely to tweet about anti-vaccine topics, but we also saw that tweeters with antivaxx stances were more supportive of Vladimir Putin and Russia's invasion of Ukraine. We talked to Erin Jenne, an expert on topics of nationalism, populism, and foreign policy analysis at Central European University, as well as Eszter Szenes, an expert on extremism. After the investigation is complete, you will be able to find the code we used for the analysis of the Portuguese data on our GitHub repository. Transcripts are at www.theinoculation.com. The production of this investigation is supported by a grant from the IJ4EU fund. The International Press Institute (IPI), the European Journalism Centre (EJC) and any other partners in the IJ4EU fund are not responsible for the content published and any use made out of it. Links: https://www.dutchnews.nl/news/2022/03/rotterdam-philharmonic-cuts-ties-with-russian-conductor-valeri-gergiev/ https://theconversation.com/dutch-elections-mark-rutte-wins-another-term-but-fragmented-results-mask-continuing-popularity-of-the-far-right-156993