Weaponized Health Communication: Twitter Bots and Russian Trolls Amplify the Vaccine Debate

To understand how Twitter bots and trolls ("bots") promote online health content. We compared bots' to average users' rates of vaccine-relevant messages, which we collected online from July 2014 through September 2017. We estimated the likelihood that users were bots, comparing p...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:American journal of public health (1971) 2018-10, Vol.108 (10), p.1378-1384
Main Authors: Broniatowski, David A, Jamison, Amelia M, Qi, SiHua, AlKulaib, Lulwah, Chen, Tao, Benton, Adrian, Quinn, Sandra C, Dredze, Mark
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
AJPH Open-Themed Research
Amplification
Application programming interface
Automation
Business communications
Content analysis
Data collection
Dictionaries
False information
Health Communication
Health education
Humans
Hypotheses
Immunization
Immunization/Vaccines
Information dissemination
Internet
Malware
Measles
Media
Messages
Mortality
Political communication
Pollution
Public Health
Russia
Social Media
Social networks
Software agents
Vaccination
Vaccination - psychology
Vaccines
World Wide Web
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Summary:To understand how Twitter bots and trolls ("bots") promote online health content. We compared bots' to average users' rates of vaccine-relevant messages, which we collected online from July 2014 through September 2017. We estimated the likelihood that users were bots, comparing proportions of polarized and antivaccine tweets across user types. We conducted a content analysis of a Twitter hashtag associated with Russian troll activity. Compared with average users, Russian trolls (χ (1) = 102.0; P 
ISSN:0090-0036
1541-0048
DOI:10.2105/AJPH.2018.304567