Abstract
In this study, we investigate YouTube’s videos related to vaccines to understand the particularities of the opposition to vaccines in Brazil. The World Health Organization considered vaccine hesitation as one of the greatest threats to global health in 2019. Researchers associated this hesitation to a strengthening of the anti-vaccination movements, suggesting that social media is currently the main spreader of this position. YouTube increasingly becomes a matter of concern, since its recommendation system is identified as a promoter of misinformation and extreme content. Despite YouTube’s statements, misinformation and disinformation (M&D) about vaccines continue to be disseminated in videos in Portuguese, reaching a large audience. We found 52 videos containing M&D about vaccines. The main M&D were the claim of dangerous ingredients in vaccines, the defense of self-direction — freedom of choice, independent research —, the promotion of alternative health services, the myth that vaccines cause diseases, conspiracy theories, and the allegation of vaccine’s severe collateral effects. We identified 39 brands advertising on 13 videos of our M&D sample. Although the YouTube Partner Program is an important source of income, the channels use different economic strategies, such as the selling of courses, and therapies and the use of fundraising platforms. We also found that alternative health channels spread distrust about traditional institutions to promote themselves as trusted sources for the audience and thereby profit with alternative health services.
Highlights
The World Health Organization considered vaccine hesitation as one of the greatest threats to global health in 2019 (World Health Organization, 2019b)
The videos mention specific ingredients such as aluminum, mercury, formaldehyde, thimerosal, nagalase, aborted fetal tissues, poison, toxins, and chemicals. This belief is associated with two other misinformation and disinformation (M&D) from the Safety category— vaccines cause diseases (A) and vaccines cause severe collateral effects (D)
The narrative of unsafe vaccines is strengthened by the popularity of conspiracy theories (N), sowing doubt about public health organizations, physicians, scientists, universities, and mainstream media
Summary
The World Health Organization considered vaccine hesitation as one of the greatest threats to global health in 2019 (World Health Organization, 2019b). The online presence of anti-vaccination movements seems to increase in recent years (Donzelli et al, 2018; Johnson et al, 2020). These communities use strategies to reach a larger audience— personal narratives (Duchsherer et al, 2020), anti-vaccination advertisements (Jamison et al, 2020)—and create workarounds to avoid being flagged as “harmful content” on social media—e.g., using lexical variations and emphasizing concepts like “informed consent,” “health freedom,” and “pro-choice” (Kata, 2012; Koltai, 2020; Szeto et al, 2020)
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