PARIS, June 28 — The vaccine will inject you with an electronic chip, poison you, make you sick, they say. There’s no vaccine yet for treating the novel coronavirus, and scientists are multiplying efforts to find one. But already anti-vaxxers — a small but vocal group of people...
Anti-vaxxers have taken advantage of the pandemic to multiply disinformation on social media. — AFP pic
But already anti-vaxxers — a small but vocal group of people who don’t believe in vaccinations — have taken advantage of the pandemic to multiply disinformation on social media. The anti-vax rhetoric is not new, but has gained huge visibility during the pandemic, according to experts who spoke with AFP.The anti-vax movement predates both the internet and the Covid-19 crisis, but social media has created a highly-efficient “echo chamber” for anti-vaxxers, according to Sylvain Delouvee, a researcher in social psychology at the University of Rennes, in France.
Some misleading claims — like one article claiming that vaccines contain the same toxic chemicals as the substances used for lethal injections — have seemed to reappear online without direct reference to Covid-19. The attention given to Covid-19 has allowed anti-vaxxers to fold the news into their existing narrative, according to Amelia Jamison, at the University of Maryland.
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