The State of COVID Anti-Vaxxers on Facebook
Photo by Brett Jordan on Unsplash
With the rise of vaccine hesitancy, there has been a lot of criticism levied against the social media giant Facebook for not taking content moderation seriously. Its own oversight board has released a damning report, that among other things, criticized the company for letting more prominent users escape content moderation rules.
Already criticized for its mishandling of the 2016 election, Facebook has attempted to mitigate this perception through a series of half measures. Most posts concerning sensitive topics such as the 2020 election or COVID now have a disclaimer on them. The company also recently removed about 20 million posts for COVID misinformation.
While these recent measures the company has taken to curb misinformation are positive, they have been largely reactive and have not removed the presence of this misinformation on the site. If you were so inclined, you could still find groups actively devoted to spreading misinformation about COVID and the COVID vaccine, and that's not just bad for the platform but for the state of vaccine adoption across the world.
Facebook is Conservative
Something that you have to understand when looking at this topic is that Facebook has long held a conservative bent — something that is ironic given the claim that social media discriminate against conservative movements. When we look at the Top 10 performing posts via Kevin Roose and Fabio Giglietto's Twitter account Facebook's Top 10, conservative actors like Ben Shapiro, Dan Bongino, and Sean Hannity consistently make the list, and often, even more accounts, depending on the day.
The only leftist group that can even compete with these pages is Occupy Democrats. Rather than radical leftist voices being King on Facebook, it's far more likely that content farms like I Love Paws or more mainstream news site like NPR take the number one or two slots over conservative voices. Facebook's information ecosystem prioritizes centrist and conservative voices over almost anything else, and that's simply the truth when we look at the data (see end of the article for compiled data). And unfortunately, because of the way political tribalism exists today, that translates into a desire among conservative users for anything that casts doubt on the validity of the COVID vaccine.
In recent months, content concerning COVID, particularly COVID-critical content, has performed very well on the platform. In September of 2021, one of the most successful publishers was the conservative outlet Daily Wire, whose top post was about governors pushing back against Joe Biden's plan to mandate vaccines among Federal workers. Similarly, Facebook infamously held back the publication of a report in August because it revealed that the most shared story during the first quarter of 2021 was fueled by COVID vaccine skepticism. The article in question suggested that the COVID-19 vaccine may have been involved in a doctor's death (note this correlation was later deemed to be unsubstantiated)
While these particular posts do not always violate Facebook's Community Standards — often critiquing policy or taking advantage of unsubstantiated speculation rather than spreading false information—they still can be harmful. This is because malicious actors use them to spread a false narrative. It's not simply the posts themselves that are problematic, but the context they are framed with, as bad-faith actors use them to cast doubt about the COVID vaccine to the larger public. Every day, users spread such articles, even if they don't in of themselves prove very much, and use them as a pretext to cast doubt on the validity of the COVID vaccine.
As with the recent purge of content in August, Facebook and most social media platforms will periodically remove these actors in an attempt to curb misinformation (and consequently improve their image with the public and with investors). And yet, curbing misinformation has never been as simple as picking off a few bad actors. Months have passed since that action, and as we have seen (and will continue to see), misinformation is still plentiful on Facebook.
For example, much has been written about the Disinformation Dozen — the group of twelve individuals who at one point allegedly spread 65% of anti-COVID vaccine content on the web. The Center for Countering Digital Hate, the group that helped author the Disinformation Dozen report, claimed that these twelve users had "leading roles in spreading digital misinformation about Covid vaccines." These individuals have and continue to perpetuate a lot of harm, but something we must grapple with is that the problem with disinformation is not as simple as booting twelve people off of mainstream platforms like Facebook. Many people in the original Disinformation Dozen report have been kicked off of various platforms, including Facebook, but that has not stopped COVID-related misinformation from spreading.
It's the incentive structures on modern platforms that make misinformation so infectious. Facebook has set itself up as a platform to value this type of content, prioritizing raw engagement over accuracy and safety. Whistleblower Frances Haugen alleged that the company removed safety systems put in place ahead of the 2020 election. In a recent interview with 60 Minutes, they said: "as soon as the election was over, they turned them back off, or they changed the settings back to what they were before, to prioritize growth over safety." The company may not directly set out to create a vehicle for misinformation, yet their focus on growth has certainly created an environment where that's an inevitability.
As we have already seen, COVID-related misinformation continues to be very attractive to Facebook's conservative user base. Rather than stopping the spread of misinformation, conservative content creators have adapted their language to make it more palatable for the platform. COVID skepticism that does not meet Community Standards has merely moved off of Facebook, or become more insular, keeping itself to hundreds of Facebook groups, both private and public, who are being helmed by nobodies who do not have the influence to garner serious scrutiny.
These groups — albeit smaller and less influential than the likes of Ben Shapiro — spread misinformation all the same.
COVID Skeptical Facebook Groups
Anti-COVID Facebook groups have membership sizes that often do not even surpass the hundreds. They also range in their goals but taken together; they make up a sizeable community that continues to spread misinformation and incite fear about the vaccine.
Adverse Side Effects
The first major category of these anti-COVID Facebook groups are ones committed to documenting alleged vaccine side effects. All in all, I counted at least thirty of these side effect groups, ranging from ones with members in the dozens to the tens of thousands. These often advertise themselves as objective or apolitical. Many of them claim that talk of anti-vaccination will lead to an instant ban from the group. They also have explicit rules that discourage people from posting negative comments or being critical of members' free speech. "[This] is not a group to bully anyone," reads the About section of the Australian Covid Vaccine Adverse reaction Group.
These groups often try to focus on physical reactions they believe were caused by the vaccine. Swelling in the arm is a common one, as well as the development of some kind of rash — and indeed, many of these track with what the CDC advises are possible side effects, albeit framed a little hyperbolically. "I took the 2nd vaccine Thursday night. Yesterday I started to break out," posts one user in the Covid Vaccine Adverse Reactions group. Another post, this time in the group COVID Vaccine Side Effects, claims: "I received a call yesterday from NIH asking me to participate in a vaccine allergic reaction study. The doctor said, 'We are seeing things with these vaccines like we have never seen before.'"
It's not unusual, however, to see even more extreme claims made about one COVID Vaccine shot leading to someone's partner collapsing or having a seizure. As one user posted of the alleged symptoms of their husband: "Within 2 minutes of his jab," goes one post, "[my husband] said he felt hot. Had ringing in his ears. His colour turned grey and the nurse asked him if he wanted to lay down. he said yes next minute, he collapsed in his chair…." Fainting during vaccination is not unheard of, but it's exceedingly rare in adults, and it's usually believed to be caused by pain or anxiety rather than the vaccine itself.
Yet this poster blames the vaccine. "…if you have a bad reaction, report it and make it publicly known ASAP. these people need to stop covering this shit up." It goes without saying that none of these posts can be substantiated. It's merely people claiming that they have received side effects from the COVID vaccine, and ultimately the correlation remains unprovable, assuming that these symptoms happened at all.
Despite these groups claiming to focus on alleged side effects al9ne, they are unsurprisingly flooded with political stances. It's possible to find posts decrying government overreach over vaccine mandates alongside obscure conspiracy theories and a robust black market for vaccine passports and fake vaccination cards.
Anti-Health Policies
The second type of group we see on the site is those committed to being against COVID-health policies like mask mandates. I counted over 80 groups, ranging from 29 members to over 12,000, with a total of over 100,000 in all. These are for people against mask or vaccine mandates and tend to be more political. The mission statements of many of the groups are explicitly against alleged government overreach, often framing it as an almost cosmic battle between liberty and tyranny. "Gathering those who believe in life liberty and pursuit of happiness," begins the description for the group No mask Oregon. "Those who believe in medical freedom, and want to preserve community."
Not all of the people within these groups take a blindly anti-vaccination stance. Many users narrowly frame their objections to being against this specific vaccine or a specific government policy. In response to a college student asking the group Christians Against Covid Vaccination about the "positives of the anti-vax movement," one user wrote: "Is this specifically about the cov19 vax or all vaccines. Some of us are very pro vax as long as its been studied properly and proven effective while being against the cov19 vax." In another post, the description for the group People Against Vaccine Mandates (PAVM) reads: "We are non-vax, not anti-vax. We value freedom not coercion. It's easy to generalize about people against COVID health policies, but there is a diversity of people within these communities, ranging from the skeptical to the ardently anti-scientific.
While some members within these groups make plenty of grandiose statements and hyperbolic claims, they are not just devoted to shouting into the void about the alleged injustice of health mandates. A common focus is users trying to figure out a way to get around mandates, usually via religious exemptions. As one post goes in the group Christians Against Covid Vaccination: "Along with backing my written [Religious Exemption] letter my job is asking me for a letter signed and stamped by my pastor, priest, etc. The bad part about that is I sought to find [one but] no church will back me up on my request. Does any one have any idea on how I can go about this?." The comment section is filled with recommendations from sites where pastors claim they can provide such a signed letter.
Unsurprisingly, many posters tend to be very political, amplifying conservative messaging about the vaccine. There are plenty of reshares of videos from "freedom" (e.g., anti-mask and mandate) rallies that have taken place all over the world. Sometimes the posts can get critical at the political end of the spectrum the user despises. "Biden: the quicker F@cker Upper" reads one meme in the group Anti-Mask and Anti-Vax. (note — based on the content I observed, the user base appears to be very conservative, though I could not find any quantitative data that backs up this observation).
There is also a lot of misinformation about both COVID and the vaccine. Facebook is generally good at flagging these with a disclaimer, but due to the insularity of these groups, they still received a lot of attention. "So sad," reads the response to a meme about a child named Charlie Zink, who is implied to have died from the vaccine (he actually died from drowning). Many of these conspiracy theories are circulating within these groups, where people claim that someone's death is linked to the vaccine when it's not.
Anti-Vaxx
The last and most extreme are people explicitly against the effectiveness of the COVID vaccine, and often, vaccines in general. These groups are not as prevalent as the others because many actively violate Facebook's Community Standards. I counted a mere handful, not even ranging in the thousands in total membership, but the members seemed to be more committed against vaccines themselves. Where the other categories we've mentioned attempted to hide behind a veneer of scientific or political credibility, these groups can safely be categorized as unapologetically anti-science.
We see many of the same sorts of conspiracy theories spreading through these groups. Alongside inaccurate medical information, we observe people regularly posting links of recently deceased individuals, particularly children, and then claiming that the vaccine is to blame. "Why is this not being talked about?!" one user posts in the group Anti Covid19 vaccine, alongside a link to a BBC article about two British children dying from yet-to-be-determined causes. "Surely it's time to stop the vax rollout to school aged children."
These members have immense paranoia that the COVID vaccine will cause them or their loved ones imminent harm. Commenters appeared to express many worries about the vaccine, ranging from believing that it would compromise their immune systems to thinking it would lead to their premature deaths. Sometimes these concerns lead to the perpetuation of truly absurd conspiracy theories. "I HATE THE VACCINE…AND THOSE DAMN MICROCHIPS RUINING OUR COUNTRY," one user writes in the group Anti-Vaccine 💪💪✊✊, alluding to the erroneous but common conspiracy theory that the COVID vaccine is being used to implant microchips inside everyone secretly.
To make matters more confusing, there is a fair amount of trolling within these groups, both from pro-vaxxers who want to disrupt these communities and anti-vaxxers who take great pride in "owning" the other side. For example, the group The Anti-Vax Flat-Earthers is filled with users both affirming these views as well as openly mocking them. "I ate flat bread again in ur face roundy" one person writes in open defiance of flat Earther ideology (a discredited ideology claiming that the Earth is flat).
This circle of the Internet can become toxic quite quickly. Although it has currently been mostly constrained to private groups on Facebook, the interest for this content is certainly there and building.
Conclusion
When it comes to the COVID vaccine, there is a lot of misinformation on Facebook. We are not only talking about influencers like Ben Shapiro and Dan Bongino but over 100 groups, with over 154 thousand members. There is undoubtedly some overlap with users between these groups, but keep in mind that this count is by no means exhaustive. These are only the ones that I, as an English speaker, was able to find cross-referencing several search results. Many more exist, and if they are like the ones I found, they filter users to less regulated parts of the web, such as Telegram and Rumble.
Now, to be fair, there is an entire competing ecosystem that is pro-vaccine. Organizations like UNICEF and the National Institute of Health often appear on top of the rankings, serving as a way to counter the anti-vaccine narrative prevalent on the platform. If you were searching for information on the COVID vaccine, it would be far more likely for you to stumble across a post by one of these groups than The Anti-Vax Flat-Earthers. Facebook has changed its architecture to value these sources in search results over other misinformation on the platform (for the time being).
Facebook is still a company that values engagement, however, over accurate information. Since influencers like Ben Shapiro are bringing in so much viewership with COVID vaccine skeptical content, it remains on the platform in spades. People are interested in hearing about how the world's response to COVID is wrong (whether it's because they think this vaccine is ineffective or all of them are), and they are willing to find it even if it means extra minutes wasted in the search bar. A pipeline exists where the skepticism fostered by men such as Ben Shapiro can filter down into private groups and possibly even offsite to more "open" parts of the web such as Gettr, Telegram, or Rumble.
Facebook claims that they want to stop misinformation, but based on how they incentivize that behavior on their site, it seems here to stay.
If you would like to see the data I used to craft this article, check out a copy of it here: