Cross-platform spread: vaccine-related content, sources, and conspiracy theories in YouTube videos shared in early Twitter COVID-19 conversations

Tamar Ginossar; Iain J Cruickshank; Elena Zheleva; Jason Sulskis; Tanya Berger-Wolf

doi:10.1080/21645515.2021.2003647

Cross-platform spread: vaccine-related content, sources, and conspiracy theories in YouTube videos shared in early Twitter COVID-19 conversations

Hum Vaccin Immunother. 2022 Dec 31;18(1):1-13. doi: 10.1080/21645515.2021.2003647. Epub 2022 Jan 21.

Authors

Tamar Ginossar¹, Iain J Cruickshank², Elena Zheleva³, Jason Sulskis³, Tanya Berger-Wolf⁴

Affiliations

¹ Department of Communication and Journalism, Institute for Social Research, The University of New Mexico, Albuquerque, NM, USA.
² Institute for Software Research, Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh, PA, USA.
³ Computer Science Department, University of Illinois at Chicago, Chicago, IL, USA.
⁴ Translational Data Analytics Institute, Computer Science Engineering, Electrical, Computer Engineering, and Evolution, Ecology, and Organismal Biology, Ohio State University, Columbus, OH, USA.

Abstract

High uptake of vaccinations is essential in fighting infectious diseases, including severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) that causes the ongoing coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic. Social media play a crucial role in propagating misinformation about vaccination, including through conspiracy theories and can negatively impact trust in vaccination. Users typically engage with multiple social media platforms; however, little is known about the role and content of cross-platform use in spreading vaccination-related information. This study examined the content and dynamics of YouTube videos shared in vaccine-related tweets posted to COVID-19 conversations before the COVID-19 vaccine rollout. We screened approximately 144 million tweets posted to COVID-19 conversations and identified 930,539 unique tweets in English that discussed vaccinations posted between 1 February and 23 June 2020. We then identified links to 2,097 unique YouTube videos that were tweeted. Analysis of the video transcripts using Latent Dirichlet Allocation topic modeling and independent coders indicate the dominance of conspiracy theories. Following the World Health Organization's declaration of the COVID-19 outbreak as a public health emergency of international concern, anti-vaccination frames rapidly transitioned from claiming that vaccines cause autism to pandemic conspiracy theories, often featuring Bill Gates. Content analysis of the 20 most tweeted videos revealed that the majority (n = 15) opposed vaccination and included conspiracy theories. Their spread on Twitter was consistent with spamming and coordinated efforts. These findings show the role of cross-platform sharing of YouTube videos over Twitter as a strategy to propagate primarily anti-vaccination messages. Future policies and interventions should consider how to counteract misinformation spread via such cross-platform activities.

Keywords: Anti-vaccination; Twitter; YouTube; big data; conspiracy theories; cross-platform; data mining social media; machine learning; misinformation; vaccinations; vaccine hesitancy.

Publication types

Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

MeSH terms

COVID-19 Vaccines
COVID-19* / prevention & control
Communication
Humans
SARS-CoV-2
Social Media*
Vaccines*

Substances

COVID-19 Vaccines
Vaccines

Grants and funding

This work was supported by the the University of New Mexico Women in STEM Faculty Development Fund ; Omar N. Bradley Foundation through a General Omar N. Bradley Research Fellowship in Mathematics Grant.