Searching for Community and Safety: Evaluating Common Information Shared in Online Ex-Vaxxer Communities

Abstract

This study examines a collection of artifacts passed on from some closed Facebook groups of anti-vaxxers. The study conducted a thematic analysis to determine whether or not the group is a community of practice, evaluate and categorize the types of information shared in these groups, and determine the sources of over 1,100 links across two compiled documents to address a series of questions related to claims of ex-vaxxers when compared to anti-vaxxers and the types of data commonly referenced. Findings indicated that ex-vaxxers and anti-vaxxers have separate and distinct claims, abstracts are the most commonly shared scholarly document, and select information is most often taken out of context. This data set can be analyzed for valence and language use in future studies. The purpose of this study is to evaluate information shared in among anti-and ex-vaxxer parents. This study does not seek to validate a specific position or point of view, nor does the researcher want to explore or determine correctness of beliefs.

Detecting Conspiracy Theories on Social Media: Improving Machine Learning to Detect and Understand Online Conspiracy Theories

“…Numerous other studies validate these findings, especially in respect to manipulating scientific evidence (Takaoka, 2019;Ekram et al, 2019;Marcon, Murdoch, and Caulfield, 2017), appealing to emotions (Greenberg, Dube, and Driedger, 2017;Guidry et al, 2015;Mocanu et al, 2015;Brugnoli et al, 2019) and using broader conspiracy theories (Sommariva et al, 2018;Arif et al, 2018;Bhattacharjee, Srijith, and Desarkar, 2019;Gandhi, Patel, and Zhan, 2020;Hornsey et al, 2020;Mahajan et al, 2019;Penţa and Băban, 2014;Smith and Graham, 2019).…”

Communal Quirks and Circlejerks: A Taxonomy of Processes Contributing to Insularity in Online Communities

“…Although this appeared to contribute to community cohesiveness, it came at the expense of fostering diversity of opinion-as another participant highlighted, "a whole subreddit will be dominated by this one opinion, and there's no way around that… I think it just makes people really narrow minded, to only have one sort of view presented" (Alex, 21). The absence or visible censure of divergent viewpoints within these communities may further encourage members to converge towards the dominant opinion of the ingroup (Topirceanu et al 2016), potentially becoming more polarised in their beliefs (Chan and Fu 2017).…”

“…In more extreme instances these online communities may become echo chambers, reflecting and intensifying shared views, sheltering members from ideological opposition and fostering intolerance (Brainard 2009;Garrett 2009;Hall Jamieson and Cappella 2008). For example, researchers have previously identified these issues in communities characterised by open prejudices (LaViolette and Hogan 2019; Massanari 2017; Mittos et al 2020) and in online spaces sharing health misinformation (Takaoka 2019). However, these communities do not spring fully-formed into existence, nor is there a clear Proceedings of the Fourteenth International AAAI Conference on Web and Social Media (ICWSM 2020) delineation between online spaces which are insular and those which are not.…”