The Anti-Vaxx Playbook

Post Reply New Topic

In late October, the world’s leading anti-vaxxers held a private three-day meeting in which they discussed how to destroy confidence in the COVID vaccine. A private online conference was organised by the National Vaccine Information Center (NVIC) and held from 16-18 October. The NVIC sits at the core of the established anti- vaccine movement. A CCHD (Center for Countering Digital Hate) research team was present to record, transcribe, and analyze their candid discussions.

The Anti-Vaxx Playbook

The online debate between vaccine advocates and anti-vaxxers is not symmetrical. The medical and scientific professionals attempting to turn the tide of the COVID pandemic must ask others to take action: to accept a COVID vaccine. To do so, they must convince the public that COVID is dangerous and give them confidence that a vaccine is safe and effective.

The same is not true for anti-vaxxers: they win the debate by default if a skeptical public fails to take action and use the vaccine. This is why the term “vaccine hesitant” applies to people who are uncertain whether they will use a vaccine, as well as those who are sure they won’t. It is also why generating uncertainty and confusion is a powerful strategy for anti-vaxxers.

Anti-vaxxers have developed a sophisticated playbook for spreading uncertainty about a COVID vaccine and answering the concerns of vaccine hesitant people with anti-vaccine misinformation.

#1. Establishing the anti-vaxx “master narrative” on COVID vaccines

Online anti-vaxxers have organized themselves around a “master narrative” comprised of three key messages: COVID is not dangerous, the vaccine is dangerous, and vaccine advocates cannot be trusted.

#2. Adapting the master narrative for online subcultures

Different elements of the online anti-vaccine movement adapt the master narrative to expand its reach. Alternative health practitioners, conspiracy theorists, and accounts directed at parents or ethnic communities add their reach to the master narrative and tailor it for their audiences. In doing so, they add to the uncertainty around COVID and the vaccine.

#3. Offering spaces for vaccine-hesitant people

Anti-vaxxers harness the uncertainty that they create by offering online “answering spaces” where people with doubts about COVID or the vaccine can direct their questions. These spaces are often more easily accessible or more tailored to their audience’s interests than their pro-vaccine equivalents. People entering these spaces are met with answers that harden their doubts into vaccine hesitancy.

#4. Converting the vaccine-hesitant into anti-vaxxers

The most established “answering spaces” identify vaccine hesitant individuals, convert them into committed anti-vaxxers, and offer training to make them more effective activists.

#5. Mitigating attacks on their online infrastructure

Leading online anti-vaxxers have adopted a “Lifeboat Strategy” to migrate their followers to “alt-tech” platforms such as Telegram and Parler in anticipation that their mainstream accounts will be removed. They have also developed techniques for undermining fact-checking and attempts to remove their misinformation.

Sources:
The Anti-Vaxx Playbook: How To Spread Anti-Vaccine Propaganda
The Anti-VAXX Playbook

Woah. OK, I was not expecting them to literally get together and plan to spread misinformation so widely like that.

Same here but I never paid much attention to anti-vaxers thou. I can NOT take anybody seriously who would turn to Jenny McCarthy for medical & scientific information. I sure did NOT learn any of that from watching Singled Out. I always thought anti-vaxers were too stupid &/or too paranoid to have a whole coordinated movement. Perhaps I've been majorly underestimating them

I generally support vaccines. I do NOT believe that they cause autism or that parents should have the rite to endanger their children's health on the grounds of religious or moral reasons, & I also believe that vaccines should be completely free for the public. However I have serious concerns about the Covid vaccines. They were being rushed out by politicians with NO scientific or medical background. The politicians were trying to score major political points & they also had very close ties to the pharmaceutical industry. Plus those same politicians have been intentionally spreading misinformation about the virus from the very beginning & even publicly denied the virus while telling their inner-circle otherwise. I would have a lot more confidence in the Covid vaccine if the people in charge of things would of believed in science & would of actually cared about public health. I'm guessing I would fit under the term “vaccine hesitant” but I'm too much of an independent freethinker to hop on the anti-vaxer bandwagon.