Facebook is leading a behind-the-scenes analysis of doubts expressed by its U.S. platform users about vaccines in an attempt to teach its software how to pinpoint the medical attitudes of Americans, according to a March 14 Washington Post report.
The social media giant launched the study to better understand the spread of ideas that support vaccine hesitancy on social media. For the study, Facebook divided its U.S. users, groups and pages into 638 population segments to explore which types of groups hold vaccine hesitant beliefs, according to the report. The segments could be at least 3 million people.
Some of the early findings from the study include: just 10 out of the 638 population segments contained 50 percent of all vaccine hesitancy on the platform, and among the population segment with the most vaccine hesitancy, just 111 users contributed half of all the vaccine hesitant content.
Facebook's research also uncovered early evidence of significant overlap between communities that are skeptical of vaccines and those affiliated with QAnon, an internet conspiracy theory that has been associated with violent crimes committed by its followers, according to the report.
In an emailed statement to the Post, a Facebook spokesperson said the company has teamed up with more than 60 global health experts and routinely studies a variety of content to inform its polices. The spokesperson added that Facebook could use the findings from the recent study to inform policy discussions about how to address problematic content or how to direct more authoritative information to specific groups.
While Facebook's internal study found that vaccine hesitancy comments overlap with QAnon, the company notes that the type of comments go well beyond it and into many other different types of communities.
QAnon groups appeared to have been more focused on a possible distrust of authority as a reason for vaccine hesitancy, but other groups had different ways and reasons of expressing their doubts and worries. Because of this, public health experts will need to create nuanced messages when trying to address vaccine hesitancy in the population, the study concluded.