Just who am they, anyway?

March 21, 2019 7:50 AM

Anti-vaxxers trolled a doctor’s office. Here’s what scientists learned from the attack. [WaPo] Same story, different slant with different information: 'They picked on the wrong group': Attacked on social media, local pediatricians take on vaccine doubters [Post-Gazette] Both articles are worthwhile; they don't overlap much and combined give a fuller picture.
posted by hippybear (33 comments total)

Really not a post about anti-vax, more a post about social media use and data analysis.
posted by hippybear at 7:51 AM on March 21, 2019 [4 favorites]

(i.e. please don't give the mods headaches)
posted by hippybear at 7:52 AM on March 21, 2019 [7 favorites]

It's a tough question. Unfortunately, the globalization of discussion that benefits some minorities online also enables the globalization of coordinated harassment and bullying.
posted by GenderNullPointerException at 7:58 AM on March 21, 2019

coordinated via private Facebook groups

ಠ_ಠ

I forget if this was posted on the blue but: Anti-vaxx propaganda has gone viral on Facebook. Pinterest has a cure.
posted by gwint at 8:02 AM on March 21, 2019 [5 favorites]

I'm having trouble loading the second link; could someone tell me what the premise of that article is?
posted by hopeless romantique at 8:04 AM on March 21, 2019

It's a less personal account of the attack, focussing more on the research that was done to determine the four main reasons people are anti-vax, which break down into trust, alternatives, safety, and conspiracy.

Of the four subgroups, the trust group indicated a suspicion of the medical community and defended personal liberty. The alternatives group showed a concern about chemicals in vaccines and interest in homeopathic remedies to replace vaccines. The safety group focused on perceived vaccine risks and concerns about vaccines being immoral. The conspiracy group suggested the government and others were hiding information they saw as facts.

Also from that article, "Next week they plan to launch a toolkit for pediatricians and vaccine advocates, titled “Shots Heard Round the World,” Dr. Wolynn said. It’s more than 80 pages of evidence-based information, including how to ban commenters and how to disable Facebook ratings (which may be affected by negative commenters)."

Some other information about the situation too, but those were the two paragraphs that jumped out at me and led me to post it.
posted by hippybear at 8:09 AM on March 21, 2019 [7 favorites]

Anti-vaxxers use Facebook to coordinate attacks on parents who have lost children.
posted by LindsayIrene at 8:14 AM on March 21, 2019 [5 favorites]

I heard something recently on some podcast... Oh yes, this 2017 episode of Reveal about PizzaGate, which was an astonishing display of how they are able to analyze social media interactions even across platforms. People forget that all this stuff is public and connections can be sniffed out with the right tools.
posted by hippybear at 8:47 AM on March 21, 2019 [1 favorite]

This sort of communications strategy is critical, with the key enablers being those who can figure out the messaging. Just as medicine has specialized to, say differentiate biostatistics and epidemiology from the biochemistry/molecular biology of viral research, so to do new specialists in communications of science, essentially marketing for science, need to emerge. Doctors, the frontliners who deal with the anti-vaxxers directly, and researchers, who know the science backwards and forwards, aren't the ones to lead on this. When was the last time an Olympic medal winner won an Oscar for a movie script about their sport? When one person can't do all the things, response needs a team approach.

Science has been backfooted by sophisticated political attacks, both on this and on issues like climate change. The naive approach that scientists (or doctors) just need to be better communicators does not and is not working. If we want science to be best used to serve the greatest number of people, it needs to use the best tools it can to target its message.
posted by bonehead at 9:04 AM on March 21, 2019 [6 favorites]

For quite a while I've only grouped 9/11 hoaxers, holocaust deniers, and Flat Earthers in the "do not engage, do not allow in your social group under any circumstances, there is only Bad Faith operating here."

Each day I get a a little closer to putting Anti-Vaxxers on that list.
posted by tclark at 9:11 AM on March 21, 2019 [2 favorites]

I really like the proactive patient-centered approach the doctors are taking. In the second article the doctor emphasizes that it’s their JOB to communicate with patients. Pediatricians really are amazing. They need to build rapport with kids but also effectively communicate with parents. I’m not my best at the pediatrician —- tired, anxious, distracted usually —- it must be really tough.
posted by CMcG at 9:14 AM on March 21, 2019 [3 favorites]

The second article also emphasizes that the pediatricians are using messaging and marketing techniques designed to answer the different types of questions they get from parents. That's the important bit to me: they're being given a toolkit and a protocol to work with instead of simply being told to "figure it out" on their own.

Support for the pediatricians is critical to making this work. It doesn't work very well when doctors are simply thrown to the wolves without help.
posted by bonehead at 9:19 AM on March 21, 2019 [3 favorites]

tclark: "For quite a while I've only grouped 9/11 hoaxers, holocaust deniers, and Flat Earthers in the "do not engage, do not allow in your social group under any circumstances, there is only Bad Faith operating here."

Each day I get a a little closer to putting Anti-Vaxxers on that list."

Why wait? Seriously. Anti-science is anti-science, and anti-science is a net negative for humanity. The ONLY thing we as a species have ever done that could possibly be used as justification for our continued existence is banding together globally to prevent and eradicate horrible diseases like polio and smallpox. These fuckers want to reverse that and they are actively coordinating efforts to make it happen. Fuck them. Do not engage, do not allow in your social group, there is only Bad Faith operating here.
posted by caution live frogs at 9:34 AM on March 21, 2019 [33 favorites]

I understand not wanting to engage with bad faith actors.

I think that there are individuals who have legitimate mistrust in the medical community. (I might call those who deny medical abuses to be anti-history or anti-sociology.) I also think that doctors have a responsibility to try to reach their patients’ guardians with the importance of vaccinations.

This effort seems to be about the opposite of saying “they are the same.” Instead, the data tells the researchers that anti-vaxers are different from one another and in that finding there may be ways to change some groups’ minds through tailoring your communication to each individual group. I hope they see positive results!
posted by CMcG at 9:43 AM on March 21, 2019 [2 favorites]

I try to be fairly strict on who I classify as acting in bad faith -- namely, they don't really believe it, they're pretending to in order to serve an agenda.

Until recently, I've put anti-vaxxers in the same bucket as a dog who tries to bite me in panic while I'm trying to free it from a snare. My thoughts are shifting on this. Anti-vax started in bad faith (Wakefield), and got caught up by panic and unreason.

However, I'm more and more convinced that panic and unreason doesn't fully cover it. It's starting to look like bad faith.
posted by tclark at 9:46 AM on March 21, 2019 [1 favorite]

I think this emphasizes why research over prejudgement is so important.

I've seen figures in Canada at least, that many parents who decline to vaccinate are actually conservative undecideds that do not vaccinate out of misplaced caution. They're less those who construct an iconoclastic identity for themselves, and so are inclined to pervert and make worst-faith interpretations of evidence, but rather confused parents who can be reached and convinced to do the right thing with patience and the right messaging.

Again, this is about retail one-on-one communications, less about on social media engagement.
posted by bonehead at 9:57 AM on March 21, 2019 [4 favorites]

tclark: Anti-vax started in bad faith (Wakefield), and got caught up by panic and unreason.

However, I'm more and more convinced that panic and unreason doesn't fully cover it. It's starting to look like bad faith.

To me, it’s the same thought process behind conspiracy theories. When someone has gone that far around the bend, no amount of reasoning is going to sway from a position that they didn’t use reason to get into. To the hardcore faithful, I’m sure Andrew Wakefield is seen as a martyr who got creamed by the establishment for daring to speak truth to power. As much as there are gleeful shit stirrers acting in bad faith as you point out, there are people who sincerely believe these views. They see the pro-vax crowd as timid sheeple who go along with the trend, naively believing that big pharma/big government really has their best interest at heart while pumping helpless children with god-knows-what, sneering at free thinkers who dare to ask questions.

In short, how do you reach people like that?
posted by dr_dank at 11:06 AM on March 21, 2019 [4 favorites]

In short, how do you reach people like that?

It doesn't matter what the subject matter is or if the information is true or false, if an appeal is made to someone's base desires, they'll listen. If a broad enough or specific enough appeal is made, they can be receptive to ideas. Based on that individual person's particular tolerance for dissonance and the presence of contradictory ideas, it may be possible to change their mind with the right information.
posted by Revvy at 11:32 AM on March 21, 2019 [2 favorites]

I disagree with the four distinct classifications; rather that there are 4 distinct arguments (safety, conspiracy, chemicals, liberty) that anti-vaxxers make, and they move from argument to argument depending on success or savvy.
posted by The_Vegetables at 11:34 AM on March 21, 2019 [5 favorites]

I disagree with the four distinct classifications...

I'm inclined to agree with you and do find certain bad faith actors jump arguments regardless of controversy/conspiracy, but would love to see some statistics that support this across the anti-vaxx spectrum.
posted by SoundInhabitant at 11:45 AM on March 21, 2019

I disagree with the four distinct classifications; rather that there are 4 distinct arguments (safety, conspiracy, chemicals, liberty) that anti-vaxxers make, and they move from argument to argument depending on success or savvy.

The amount of deep research they did into the social media presence of those they used as their pool from which they drew their data suggests otherwise which is why they drew these conclusions. I haven't done any research on anyone like they report to have done so I'll rely on the findings they draw.
posted by hippybear at 11:54 AM on March 21, 2019 [3 favorites]

Kids Plus is my pediatrician office! I chose them because they are walking distance from my house and because they require all patients to be vaccinated. It made sense since you can't vaccinate newborns for most things right away and doctors offices have a potential to be a disease vector for highly contagious illnesses like the measles.

They are great and I really appreciate having the option to reach out via Facebook if I have questions.
posted by Alison at 12:20 PM on March 21, 2019 [2 favorites]

I haven't done any research on anyone like they report to have done so I'll rely on the findings they draw.

Well it would be really easy to refute me - I mean for example all they have to do to delete approximately 1/4 of anti-vaxxers is improve vaccine safety labeling and have doctors read it to patients. (where 'improve' means update the text on the box).
posted by The_Vegetables at 12:22 PM on March 21, 2019

so to do new specialists in communications of science, essentially marketing for science, need to emerge.

Yes. And in order for them to emerge, we need to pay them to do it. The current strategy of just encouraging working scientists to add outreach to their existing platter of tasks is not cutting it. We need to let people specialize and give them the support they need to do that.
posted by sciatrix at 12:24 PM on March 21, 2019 [5 favorites]

Do you think the Russians would like Americans to die? I do. This is part of an attack to weaken America. The same goes for Russian support for the NRA and, probably, oppositino to single payer healthcare.
posted by M-x shell at 12:25 PM on March 21, 2019 [3 favorites]

You can open the Post-Gazette link in an incognito window in Chrome.
posted by M-x shell at 12:26 PM on March 21, 2019

I don't think "the Russians" (meaning the kleptocrats basically running the country, i.e. Putin and friends) actually give a shit about killing Americans individually. Whether Americans end up dying as a result of their propaganda efforts is almost certainly irrelevant to them, in the same way that a few British people dying from the chemical agents that they used to kill a wayward spy were also irrelevant.

What they do care deeply about is a perceived zero-sum game between the "West", writ large and principally centered around the US, and them. Because they believe that the game is zero-sum, anything that hurts the US must by definition benefit them. Hence the seeming lack of strategy or coordination between their various efforts; they don't need to closely coordinate, and can do stuff like employ cybercriminals without much positive control over them, because anything that damages Western interests is perceived as beneficial.

The idea that they might inadvertently work against their own interests in undermining the West generally or the US in particular, doesn't seem to figure into it very far.

Intriguingly, one of the things that the suicide-pact Right (i.e. Trump and friends) has with the Russian kleptocrats is the same perception of an overarching zero-sum game. They even play it out within the confines of US politics: anything that damages their "enemies", meaning the Democrats, must definitionally be good for them. Once you have bought into the idea that life is a zero-sum struggle for resources vs. your adversaries, behaviors that start to look suspiciously like terrorism rather than statecraft rather quickly fall out of it.
posted by Kadin2048 at 1:12 PM on March 21, 2019 [7 favorites]

so to do new specialists in communications of science, essentially marketing for science, need to emerge

Aren't they called "teachers" (not necessarily in schools)? There's no lack of research on how to teach complex and culturally controversial issues in science. There's also no lack of evangelists willing to do it. But many end up hamstrung and defunded by the governments who employ them. So burnout is pretty high.
posted by GenderNullPointerException at 1:17 PM on March 21, 2019 [2 favorites]

I respond by celebrating vaccination. I am grateful that I and my family have been spared polio, whooping cough, Diphtheria (older brother had it), tetanus, etc. Grateful my son was spared measles, rubella, chicken pox. We should have Vaccination Day to celebrate Salk and Sabin and every vaccination scientist who made no profit because they were working for the public good.

Some of the anti-vaxers are clearly looking for an anti-establishment cause to get behind. We should figure out how to make them anti-capitalist.
posted by theora55 at 2:13 PM on March 21, 2019 [6 favorites]

The anti-capitalist stuff comes from the Russians too. I see you found it.

The anti-vaxxers are misguidedly looking for a way to improve the world for their children - they should fight climate change, which is real. Or campaign for universal health care.
posted by w0mbat at 5:55 PM on March 21, 2019 [2 favorites]

I think the Russians want to broadly weaken rationality in the general populace, so antivax, contrail theory, teletubbies control the weather, whatever it is, if it's irrational, it's good for Putin because it pries open the American third eye and enables them to pour their directed propaganda straight into the collective limbic system and RULE THE WORLD!
posted by Don Pepino at 6:37 AM on March 22, 2019 [1 favorite]

I think in the mindset of Russia, anything that sows discord anywhere on the planet that isn't Russia works to their advantage. From what I've read about Russia itself, the entire place runs on compromat which is basically gathering blackmail information about others in order to have power over them. That sounds exhausting.

The entire situation is exhausting. Anywhere we used to feel like we could relax and have confidence in the good faith of others is being eroded and possibly deliberately by bad actors.

I don't like this timeline and would like to choose another, please.
posted by hippybear at 2:04 PM on March 24, 2019

The Anti-Vaxx Movement Is More Organized and Powerful Than Ever: Funding is on the rise and so are the attempts to affect legislation, disrupt hearings, and elect like-minded lawmakers.
posted by homunculus at 5:05 PM on March 27, 2019