"23andMe confirms: I'm super white" -- Analyzing Twitter Discourse On Genetic Testing

Mittos, Alexandros; Blackburn, Jeremy; Cristofaro, Emiliano De

doi:10.48550/arxiv.1801.09946

Cited by 4 publications

(7 citation statements)

References 16 publications

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“…In followup work (Panofsky and Donovan 2019), they also look at the relationship between citizen science and white nationalists' use of genetic testing, shedding light on how "repair strategies" combine anti-scientific attacks on the legitimacy of these tests and reinterpretations of them in terms of white nationalist histories. (Mittos, Blackburn, and De Cristofaro 2018) conduct a study of the Twitter discourse on genetic testing, examining 300K tweets, and find that those who are interested in genetic testing appear to be tech-savvy and interested in digital health in general. They also find sporadic instances of users using genetic testing in a racist context, and others who express privacy concerns.…”

Section: Related Workmentioning

confidence: 99%

“And We Will Fight for Our Race!” A Measurement Study of Genetic Testing Conversations on Reddit and 4chan

Mittos

Zannettou

Blackburn

et al. 2020

ICWSM

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Progress in genomics has enabled the emergence of a booming market for “direct-to-consumer” genetic testing. Nowadays, companies like 23andMe and AncestryDNA provide affordable health, genealogy, and ancestry reports, and have already tested tens of millions of customers. At the same time, alt- and far-right groups have also taken an interest in genetic testing, using them to attack minorities and prove their genetic “purity.” In this paper, we present a measurement study shedding light on how genetic testing is being discussed on Web communities in Reddit and 4chan. We collect 1.3M comments posted over 27 months on the two platforms, using a set of 280 keywords related to genetic testing. We then use NLP and computer vision tools to identify trends, themes, and topics of discussion. Our analysis shows that genetic testing attracts a lot of attention on Reddit and 4chan, with discussions often including highly toxic language expressed through hateful, racist, and misogynistic comments. In particular, on 4chan's politically incorrect board (/pol/), content from genetic testing conversations involves several alt-right personalities and openly antisemitic rhetoric, often conveyed through memes. Finally, we find that discussions build around user groups, from technology enthusiasts to communities promoting fringe political views.

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Section: Related Workmentioning

confidence: 99%

“And We Will Fight for Our Race!” A Measurement Study of Genetic Testing Conversations on Reddit and 4chan

Mittos

Zannettou

Blackburn

et al. 2020

ICWSM

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…User generated content in online environments has proven helpful for researchers to investigate a broad range of topics (Mejova, Abbar, and Haddadi 2016;De Choudhury et al 2016). However, only a few studies have focused on mining the online disclosure of DTC genetic testing results in Twitter (Olejnik, Agnieszka, and Castelluccia 2014;Mittos, Blackburn, and De Cristofaro 2018). Moreover, besides the aforementioned research topics, few studies investigated the extent to which actual consumers applied and discussed their experiences regarding kinship, another popular application of DTC genetic testing.…”

Section: Social Computingmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…For instance, it was shown that Twitter users often post their ethnic background more than other information, such as disease risks, with respect to testing results (Olejnik, Agnieszka, and Castelluc-cia 2014). More recently, a large-scale analysis of Twitter discourse related to DTC genetic testing indicated that this behavior was often influenced by news and DTC websites (Mittos, Blackburn, and De Cristofaro 2018). Though there is a large population on Twitter who have disclosed their test results, it is difficult for Twitter users to develop rich discussions due to the limited number of characters in a tweet and its design as an all-purpose discussion environment.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Health and Kinship Matter: Learning About Direct-To-Consumer Genetic Testing User Experiences via Online Discussions

Yin

Song

Clayton

et al. 2019

Preprint

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Direct-to-consumer (DTC) genetic testing has gained in popularity over the past decade, with over 12 million consumers to date. Given its increasing stature in society, along with weak regulatory oversight, it is important to learn about actual consumers' testing experiences. Traditional interviews or survey-based studies have been limited in that they had small sample sizes or lacked detailed descriptions of personal experiences. Yet many people are now sharing their DTC genetic testing experiences via online social media platforms. In this paper, we focused on one particularly lively online discussion forum, r/23andme subreddit, where, as of before March 2018, 5,857 users published 37,183 posts. We applied topic modeling to the posts and examined the identified topics and temporal posting trends. We further applied regression analysis to learn the association between the attention that a submission received, in terms of votes and comments, and the posting content. Our findings indicate that bursts of the increase of such online discussion in 2017 may correlate with the Food and Drug Administration's authorization for marketing of 23andMe genetic test on health risks, as well as hot sale of 23andMe's products on Black Friday. While ancestry composition was a popular subject, kinship was steadily growing towards a major online discussion topic. Moreover, compared with other topics, health and kinship were more likely to receive attention, in terms of votes, while testing reports were more likely to receive attention, in term of comments. Our findings suggest that people may not always be prepared to deal with the unexpected consequences of DTC genetic testing. Moreover, it appears that the users in this subreddit might not sufficiently consider privacy when taking a test or seeking an interpretation from a third-party service provider.

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“…Extant research regarding DTC genetic testing on social media confirms this lack of understanding. Prior research focuses on microblogging services such as Twitter [ 25 , 26 ], Reddit [ 27 ], or 4chan [ 18 ] to investigate user discourse on DTC genetic testing and shows that we are still puzzled about users' interests and opinions toward DTC genetic testing. Inconsistent findings regarding which topics users discuss on different platforms (eg, ancestry testing on Twitter [ 25 ] and health testing on Reddit [ 27 ]) suggest that the DTC genetic testing discourse varies from platform to platform and must thus be investigated separately.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Prior research focuses on microblogging services such as Twitter [ 25 , 26 ], Reddit [ 27 ], or 4chan [ 18 ] to investigate user discourse on DTC genetic testing and shows that we are still puzzled about users' interests and opinions toward DTC genetic testing. Inconsistent findings regarding which topics users discuss on different platforms (eg, ancestry testing on Twitter [ 25 ] and health testing on Reddit [ 27 ]) suggest that the DTC genetic testing discourse varies from platform to platform and must thus be investigated separately. Moreover, research has already shown the value of analyzing users' opinions and attitudes through user comments from select platforms for DTC genetic testing–related content.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Direct-to-Consumer Genetic Testing on Social Media: Topic Modeling and Sentiment Analysis of YouTube Users' Comments

Toussaint¹,

Renner²,

Lins³

et al. 2022

JMIR Infodemiology

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Background With direct-to-consumer (DTC) genetic testing enabling self-responsible access to novel information on ancestry, traits, or health, consumers often turn to social media for assistance and discussion. YouTube, the largest social media platform for videos, offers an abundance of DTC genetic testing–related videos. Nevertheless, user discourse in the comments sections of these videos is largely unexplored. Objective This study aims to address the lack of knowledge concerning user discourse in the comments sections of DTC genetic testing–related videos on YouTube by exploring topics discussed and users' attitudes toward these videos. Methods We employed a 3-step research approach. First, we collected metadata and comments of the 248 most viewed DTC genetic testing–related videos on YouTube. Second, we conducted topic modeling using word frequency analysis, bigram analysis, and structural topic modeling to identify topics discussed in the comments sections of those videos. Finally, we employed Bing (binary), National Research Council Canada (NRC) emotion, and 9-level sentiment analysis to identify users' attitudes toward these DTC genetic testing–related videos, as expressed in their comments. Results We collected 84,082 comments from the 248 most viewed DTC genetic testing–related YouTube videos. With topic modeling, we identified 6 prevailing topics on (1) general genetic testing, (2) ancestry testing, (3) relationship testing, (4) health and trait testing, (5) ethical concerns, and (6) YouTube video reaction. Further, our sentiment analysis indicates strong positive emotions (anticipation, joy, surprise, and trust) and a neutral-to-positive attitude toward DTC genetic testing–related videos. Conclusions With this study, we demonstrate how to identify users' attitudes on DTC genetic testing by examining topics and opinions based on YouTube video comments. Shedding light on user discourse on social media, our findings suggest that users are highly interested in DTC genetic testing and related social media content. Nonetheless, with this novel market constantly evolving, service providers, content providers, or regulatory authorities may still need to adapt their services to users' interests and desires.

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"23andMe confirms: I'm super white" -- Analyzing Twitter Discourse On Genetic Testing

Cited by 4 publications

References 16 publications

“And We Will Fight for Our Race!” A Measurement Study of Genetic Testing Conversations on Reddit and 4chan

“And We Will Fight for Our Race!” A Measurement Study of Genetic Testing Conversations on Reddit and 4chan

Health and Kinship Matter: Learning About Direct-To-Consumer Genetic Testing User Experiences via Online Discussions

Direct-to-Consumer Genetic Testing on Social Media: Topic Modeling and Sentiment Analysis of YouTube Users' Comments

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